It was part of the increasingly vague armistice/peace agreement between the Alliance and Horde following the defeat of N’zoth.
The war campaign finale points out that the Alliance army was decimated by the war, while Sylvanas slowly pulled Loyalist forces to consolidate power in Orgrimmar. After Nazjatar, the Rebel + Alliance forces were spent, and Sylvanas was left with the biggest standing army.
While Sylvanas abandoned the Horde, the Rebel + Loyalists united, giving Horde the largest army on Azeroth. The Alliance physically can’t back up any demands. Even if they wanted to kick them out from Hammerfall, they just couldn’t. Even this story points out that the Hammerfall forces outnumber Stromic + 7th Legion three to one.
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My assumption is that the Alliance won the Arathi battlefront in the sense that by the time the factions ceased fighting (either before or after the Orgrimmar ordeal), the Alliance was in control of Stromgarde, and the Orc garrison at Ar’gorok was destroyed. Thus the Alliance won, but since Hammerfal and Go’shek were outside of the sphere of the Battle for Stromgarde, it was too late to take these back. At leats that’s how I read it.
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Yeah, the artist said it was a “What if” for if Arthas and Uther didn’t butt heads at Stratholme, and all Mal’ganis schemes didn’t work or backfired.
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It is true, I do recall Anduin suddenly only have enough men for “One last assault” on Orgrimmar right before Sylvanas left.
Then again, Blizzard often operated by “The numbers are what we deem necessary for the story” .
If only… sadly , the fall of Lordaeron was an integral part of WC 3 and pretty much necessary for the plot, I think. I tried writing a fanfic myself where Arthas would live but, even then, that mere fact just changes -so- much about how WC 3 would’ve gone…
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Yeah it starts with Arthas marrying Kael’thas and just gets better from there.
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Pitiful scenes indeed. I await the next Horde Leader Raid Boss, followed by Saint Wrynn descending from on high to forgive all the sins.
It’s a bizarre situation I’ve not seen anywhere else where players are fully on board with owning the darker sides of the factions. But the writers are not, even though they wrote it.
A Black Library warhammer writer once said “There are as many elves as the plot demands.”
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How do you come up with these…
Good it’s not just a warcraft thing then 
Wars are often fought in phases where after victory, the side that wins takes some time to recuperate and to make sure they aren´t overextended. Given that Hammerfall is on the other side of the Highlands from Stromgarde, in-universe it might be hundreds of kilometers away from Alliance positions. I´m guessing that the campaign for Hammerfall would have taken place if the war lasted long enough, but the armistice came before Alliance could strike at it.
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I think that’s it. Both factions were approaching exhaustion by the end of the war. When Saurfang asked Anduin how many troops he could bring to Orgrimmar, his reply was: “Enough for one final assault”
Even though they won Stromgarde, I doubt they’d have had the strength to push for Hammerfall. Particularly when the Scourge uprising happened a few months later.
Nope, you can see the towers of Stromgarde from Hammerfall!
Also, I vaguely recall the Gathering book having a scene were Horde refugees, both Forsaken and orcs, were leaving the Arathi highlands, because they were ordered to do so by Danath
You’re mixing up Shadows Rising (in which there are refugees) and Before the Storm (with the Gathering).
Before the Storm does indicate that Thoradin’s Wall and Stromgarde’s walls are somehow within reasonable visual distance of each other, and the Gathering, which took place between the two, was within bowshot of Thoradin’s Wall. Now google tells me that the longest recorded bowshot distance was supposedly with a Turkish traditional bow at around 900 meters.
This would mean there’s about…lets say around 1.5km (less than 1 mile) between the two structures, or approximately 15-20 minutes walking distance at a moderate pace. This would also mean that they’re still within clear visual distance. 3 miles flat is visual distance to the horizon, but obviously you lose a lot of detail at that range, so it’d have to be shorter than 3 miles. This checks out with the other stuff in the book.
At that sort of distance (assuming that the world kept the same proportions) the Arathi “Highlands” are something you could walk the length of in…about an hour? Maybe two?
These are farcical numbers, and indicative that either a) Golden put rule of cool over rule of maths or b) the Highlands are actually far weirder in their proportions for distance than we see in game.
It’s almost certainly the former.
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Ah, fair enough.
And yeah the world of Azeroth is apparently very tiny if we take all the authors at their word.
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Going strictly by in-game units of measurement, Arathi Highlands is 1.85km wide from Thoradin’s Wall to the mountains. 1.7km from Stromgarde to Hammerfall.
https://i.gyazo.com/2903065335abdc92c14e02b2e915f026.png
https://i.gyazo.com/d273fa6717ab1aebaa19ec2e7fd74918.png
First one taken from the centre of the gate at the wall, the second one from the Stromgarde Keep.
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Azeroth confirmed to be a miniature moon, not a planet.
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The Arathi Highlands literally smaller than my walk to work in the morning. Standing on Stromgarde’s wall and making rude gestures at Hammerfall and they can all see it like some monty python sketch.
“Thousands of people died in Northrend against the Lich King” yeah from overpopulation!!! they had no room to move!!!
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The devs have however stated many times that the game map scale does not reflect the true size of the world in lore. A few canon measures of distance from the books and comics off the top of my head:
- It takes a month to travel the entirety of Feralas from end to end by foot. This is because of the difficulty of the terrain and potential dangers. Night elves can cut this down by half, because they know the “safe shortcuts,” so at least two weeks at fastest to travel the entire distance.
- Manor Mistmantle is 2 miles from Darkshire, bird’s eye view crossing straight through the forest. The road winds and curves, making it even longer.
- It takes 6 weeks for a fast courier to travel the entire length of the Eastern Kingdoms from Stormwind to Lordaeron on horse back, stopping only to rest. The same distance on gryphon back takes a week and a half, again stopping to rest.
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I might have been ever so slightly disingenuous.
I know. I was just looking for a reason to post it in the thread and you gave me the prompt to jump off of
(I’ll be expecting that cheque in the mail.)