Alliance vs horde competence?

The question was about how competent and good the factions are at waging war. And the Alliance especially is absolutely useless when it comes to military matters. The only reason why Stormwind doesn’t fail completely is because they are rich enough to give everyone of their soldiers a full set of plate armor, which was a luxury in the real world.

The sword as a standard weapon is also a terrible choice. If your opponent wears any kind of armor (which isn’t of the ‘Hollywood plastic armor’-kind) a sword becomes completely useless. Even a rock is more useful than a sword in such a situation (there’s a reason why ‘mordhau’ as a technique was invented.) And surprise: The Horde has started to use better and better armor. Let’s not forget the fact that the orcs have a pretty tough skin, which is the reason why they can go on a battlefield without much armor.

(Let’s not even ask why the sword became a standard weapon in the first place, as apparently all human factions use plate armor. It would be funny watching Lordaeron and Arathi footman trying to kill one another with swords while in full plate armor.)

And every single enemy the Alliance faces is usually stronger than them. A tauren doesn’t need a weapon to crush you. He can use your body as a weapon after he crushed your skull. And then you fight such an enemy with a knightly sword or if you get lucky a longsword. Good luck.

“PUSH FORWARD!” Anduin yelled and the entire Alliance broke ranks to charge against what’s essentially a cavalry charge of heavily armored knights. The results can be seen in the cinematic.

The Alliance also doesn’t understand the concept of combined arms warfare. Where were the tanks? Where were the planes and gyrocopters? Where were the airships?

The military tactics of the Alliance only work because it’s fantasy. And that’s okay. I can forgive the fact that everyone runs around with swords. I can forgive the breaking of formations to charge against a superior enemy. It looks cool, it’s awesome and gives an epic moment. But, gaping logic holes like the missing gas masks are too big to ignore.

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Which by itself is a stupid question, in a universe where some random shaman can summon a fire elemental that kills 200 troops.

“PUSH FORWARD!” Anduin yelled and the entire Alliance broke ranks to charge against what’s essentially a cavalry charge of heavily armored knights. The results can be seen in the cinematic.

I meant prior to that. When the night elves were shooting at the Horde, and missing quite a lot of people I might add, the Stormwind troops were slowly advancing over the dead hordies. It’s the few seconds before Sylvanas blows up that siege turret.

The military tactics of the Alliance only work because it’s fantasy. And that’s okay. I can forgive the fact that everyone runs around with swords. I can forgive the breaking of formations to charge against a superior enemy. It looks cool, it’s awesome and gives an epic moment. But, gaping logic holes like the missing gas masks are too big to ignore.

I’m not saying you should ignore them. I’m saying you’re wasting your time trying to make sense out of them. You become just as foolish as the writers.

Based on results only:

Sylvanas apparently managed to capture the entire Alliance command in a death trap that only failed thanks to the very unexpected arrival of an op character.

Her “brilliance” is also somewhat mirrored in the Horde War Campaign. Many (all?) of the missions we receive from Nathanos are described as being the Banshee Queen’s initiatives. And those missions are successful. At first, anyway. They are only undermined later.

Considering, we are meant to believe that Sylvanas is working towards some overarching grandiose end, it would make sense that she only has time/interest in plotting the initial stages of those missions (as evidenced by her relative absence in game), leaving the rest up to her (perhaps lacking) subordinates.

So - Jaina aside (I’m not sure I’ve seen enough evidence for/against her as a commander yet) - I feel that the warchief is supposed to be the better strategist as long as she keeps her cool. With those below her given positions of command being less capable than their Alliance counterparts.

Basically, the Horde have the best single strategist, whilst the Alliance have a greater number of decent ones.

I’d also argue that the Alliance have a better spy network, given their ability to uncover and counter the Horde’s actions. A bit odd considering horde have access to shades (afaik), but Sylvanas seems more intent on using them to spy on her own people rather than the Alliance.

Your logic is flawed. You can’t just consider the results and ignore the circumstances. There wouldn’t have been a Battle of Lordaeron in the first place if the Vindicaar and Aurobos weren’t written out of the plot in the War of Thorns.

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I dunno. I understand that I am oversimplifying things a lot, but I also think its better to focus on what actually happened rather than what may have been.

The results are what Blizzard primarily wanted to show us. They wanted to have Sylvanas outmanoeuvre the Alliance and show her in that tactically superior position.

They would have made this happen whether or not they included other military assets. No matter how convoluted they would have had to make Sylvanas’ plans to achieve that.

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But they coudnt be bother to accauly have her win by being smarter.
So they just made the alliance dumber instead.
Poor sylvanas you used to be smart.

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Took the words right out of my mouth. Sylvanas didn’t win by being smarter, she won because Blizzard handicapped the Alliance.

Do you know when she actually won because she was smart? In Warcraft III. Credit where its due. Her strategy against the dreadlords was decent, and the dreadlords themselves weren’t dumbed down. Her strategy in the War of Thorns though? It completely relied on the Alliance being handicapped, which is why it doesn’t make it a competent plan.

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I don’t disagree. But that also doesn’t change my point.

Sylvanas is meant to be portrayed as being smarter, or at least more cunning, than the Alliance leadership. That Blizzard did not/could not write this in a satisfactory way for you should not detract from that intent. She doesn’t need to be a military genius, she just needs to be smarter than her opponents.

It just means that if the handicap didn’t exist, Blizzard would have had to write a different plan for her to come to reach the same conclusion.

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Yeah, no. If the Vindicaar was used in the War of Thorns, we could have just teleported our army to Teldrassil. Which means that the entire premise of the War of Thorns would have been meaningless. It would have been impossible for her to reach the same conclusion at that point.

You know this is an interesting question, because if we have such powerful mages and shamans in the first place why is the Alliance even deploying non-magical-forces? The answer is simple: On every thousand of regular grunts comes maybe one shaman or maybe one mage. And even then the average mage/shaman isn’t an all powerful killer machine.

What’s the point of advancing if the enemy makes a breakout, breaks your lines and nearly wins in an open battle? And instead of retreating to form a new defensive line, the Alliance charges against far superior enemies.

There is no logic or sense. Which makes it all the worse. The Alliance attacks Blighttown without ANY backup plan against the blight. This is easily the most retarded thing in the entire history of Warcraft. Especially since all you need against the blight is a gas mask. Something the gnomes possess or could aquire in some way.

The military tactics in Warcraft were never really complex or good, but BfA takes the crown in that regard. You can really see that there’s no writer within Blizzards team with even a basic understanding of military matters. Not even basic stuff learned from tabletop or Total War games. For a company where all games include large scale wars, Blizzard has surprisingly little knowledge about military tactics…or basic logic. (Which can be seen in Dazar’alor again.)

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No. It just means, that Blizzard would have to introduce a counter to it for the Horde.

Good luck countering a spaceship that can just be parked in the middle of Darnassus. Maybe those BS demolishers could stand a chance…

The thing is.
Had blizzard accauly wroten her as a comptent militery commander rather then dumbing down the alliance alot of the hate for bfa story line woudnt exist.

For example: The night elves leaving there home undefended is an insult.
A way beter way to do it would have her use banshee to posses enemy leaders, manipulate the local furbolg tribe’s against the night elves.
Destroy the tree’s to deny the night elves there ability to hid among them and trow there lives away trying to save the tree’s.

The night elves arent invincible.
Deny them there mobility and they are dead.

Granted i am keeping it very simple here.
There are atleast a dozen factors i am ignoring for this to work.
But is would be far more enjoyable if the night elf lost because she fought smarter rather then the night elf forgetting the horde has multiple times invaded them and leave there lands undefended.

Sneak a horde commando team onboard using one of the teleporters and set off some bombs.
Not that hard.
Or you know banshee possesion works wonders.

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I totally get that and am not disputing it in any way.

In fact, main thing we do is find bodies for her to raise into undead. First Valentine, who gets killed off again right afterwards, then Zelling, who later helps the rebellion and Derek, who causes it in the first place and whom Baine returns to Jaina while we “play along”.

Yes, in the end, everything comes down to this. We’re losing on all fronts but everything goes “according to plan”. So her end game better be grandiose.

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So we’re starting from the assumption that the lightforged draenei are mongoloid and that a spaceship has no ways of detecting stealth?

My idea was more of:
Goblins disguese themselves as gnomes.
As everyone overlooks gnomes they could move around the ship relatively unsuspected until the bombs are placed.
Granted there shoud be a time limet for the horde player as a show of they need to get it done before they are discovered.

Alternative have a dreanei techniction posses and spill coffee on the controls causing it to crash.
It would fit with the dreanei meme of crashing things.

Hmm. I guess it would work, seeing how there is a disguised goblin literally outside the gates of Boralus, at the heart of Kul Tiras, and in the middle of a group of gnomes.

In defense of the draenei, I’m not sure why that meme exists. Exodar: crashed by the blood elves. Xenedar: brought down by Argus’ planetary defences. In both cases the draenei didn’t actually crash or anything like that.

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People are still overhyping the Vindicaar I see.

Its greatest and arguably only strengths are the long range teleportation beacons and shielding. The offensive capabilities are lackluster at best.

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Its one time use of crashing into things isn’t to be underestimated.

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