It clearly could not be detonated anywhere considering Gelbin had to be close enough before he pushed the button.
I assume it required lugging that giant gizmo around and unless they were in the right spot, it wouldnt work/wouldnt trigger for all of them at the same time.
Ok? And? That doesn’t require sacking the city or a suicide mission. That’s an easy stealth mission.
The mission was to try and capture Rastakhan, as mentioned while that failed it still meant he died and his daughter had to take over a broken nation that just lost their main asset.
I’m sure momentarily inconveniencing the Zandalari was totally worth the lives of all those soldiers Anduin threw away.
If this game was at all realistic there would have been massive riots in Stormwind over that. “Hey, we threw away the lives of your loved ones for nothing, but it’s ok because now we’re conscripting farmers to go die too!”
You mean the point where the Alliance was now weeks away from total victory until Sylvanas decided to pull some magic out of her hat and destroy the Kul Tiran fleet?
When was that? Sometime between Anduin being unable to commit any forces at all to Kalimdor and Anduin needing to conscript farmers because he wasted so many lives?
Literally at the end of Zandalar.
Well, thanks for the last laugh before I head off to bed.
You seriously think Garrosh was lying?! Garrosh, the guy obsessed with looking strong. The guy who was afraid of ever looking weak in any way. That guy. You think that guy thought: ‘Hey, let me tell Thrall I am not capable of leading the Horde, even though I totally am. That will make me look good.’ You really think Garrosh would ever think saying he was unfit would make him look good?
You really are hopeless.
It was also to weaken the military structure and make it harder or impossible for them to wage war. Which was arguably a mixed success. The Zandalari were not prevented from entering the war, but they were significantly weakened.
And while they wanted to take Rastakhan alive, it would be kind of silly to think that neutralizing him was not a plan if he could not be captured. After all the quest text for the raid said:
We will strike down the Zandalari and remove the Horde’s most powerful ally from this war.
Reading “strike down,” I think Rastakhan’s capture was just a best case scenario, not the whole plan.
While the Alliance didn’t get everything it wanted, weakening the Zandalari and the chaos of Rastakhan’s fall does mean the Alliance ended up in a better position than it was before the raid. A complete success? No. But a gain? Yes.
They could have used a sub, stealth group, or even just a timer when they were planted. The timing of the detonation was strategic for the raid on the city. It was added chaos that helped the raid that would not have been effective if it was done at a different time. Sinking the fleet was not a goal of the raid on the city, it was done at that time to help the raid. It could have been done at other times.
Sacking 1 isolated city and retreating after is not anywhere near “total victory.”
It was weakened because the ships were blown up. Something that did not require sacking the city or callously sending off a large number of soldiers to die for no reason.
Nathanos Blightcaller says: My queen… reports are coming in from all outposts. The Alliance is tightening its grip. Victory is within their grasp.
You can’t take the war in BfA seriously in terms of who was about to win or not because the writers quite literally did not actually know who was winning. Anduin was talking about forces being stretched thin at the same time that Sylvanas was saying the Alliance was winning. The Alliance performed a strike into Zandalar and then talked about giving the Zandalari time to grieve in the same instance where another NPC says that when the Horde showed up they kicked the Alliance’s butt and that’s why they withdrew.
The Night Elves get a big scary power boost and take Darkshore but then cannot seem to get the Horde out of Ashenvale somehow until the end of the war, and even in SL they’re still in Hyjal and there are refugee NPCs in Stormwind.
Logically speaking the Horde cannot have been weeks away from losing while also having “the only force in the world possibly capable of stopping N’zoth” even when their forces are split in 9.2.5.
You can look at outcomes in terms of territory, and determine what may or may not have been true, but when it came to the ongoing war they seemed to have this idea of ‘two sides to a narrative’ thing they fixated on, but the problem was they forgot that even with two sides you can’t just have actively conflicting lines of reality.
Edit: And don’t even get me started on the mission table stuff, good god.
“Both Lord Bolvar and Father got seduced by a black dragon disguised as a hot woman. Of course, I was only 12 when Onyxia came calling, so it’s perfectly understandable why she didn’t try to seduce me as well. But here I am, a fully grown man, and king for almost ten years now. And the only black dragon that even gives me more than the time of day is another guy, and even younger than me! Dammit, am I just not masculine enough or something? I know it’s silly, but it eats away at my insecurities…”
Jaina said nothing; she merely finished sipping her cup of Peacebloom tea, set it down and teleported away while Anduin, who had not even looked up from the table throughout his rant, just continued speaking to thin air.
elsewhere, Scalecommander Emberthal suddenly, violently, shivered. What was the phrase she’d heard? “Like someone stepped on your grave”. I will NEVER take a visage form, I will NEVER take a visage form… she silently swore to herself without exactly knowing why. She was certain that the other dracthyr she’d recently been talking too about their own visages would be confused and possibly saddened, but she knew deep in her heart that it was the right decision to make.
Actions.
Words.
He killed Cairne for the throne he “”“did not want.”“”
He banished trolls for the throne he “”“did not want.”“”
Thank you for conceding that Garrosh lied when he said Thrall left him his pieces.
Most of the problem is with the way blizzard writes warcraft these days. They have decided all conflict is bad and that if people just forgave and forget everyone should just get along. Anduin is just the vehicle for making that happen. Now if the writing actually challenged his ideals and had him being proven wrong now and then. that sometimes forgiveness isn’t the answer, and some crimes are beyond forgiving. Then we could look at him and see that he isn’t perfect and that his approach becomes more measured.
Instead, we got him making friends with Nerubians right after them blow up another city and it doesn’t blow up in his face at all. Anduin is a symptom of the writers pushing a message about how war is all bad without really showing any kind of balance to the topic.
So instead we got this charcter who preaches on and on about peace and never having his ideals challenged. Making him come across preachy and boring, not to mention seem whiny about his own problems when he ignores other peoples who seem substantially more problematic.
The Zandalar outposts. The Alliance was close to victory in Zandalar, not complete total victory over the Horde. The Alliance barely had a foothold in Kalimdor at all. The only Horde capital that was under any serious pressure was Zuldazar, which the Alliance just sacked and then was forced to retreat from.
Baine Bloodhoof says: Perhaps we can open negotiations–
It was total victory. The entire bottleneck was no side had the navy to actual conduct a global war, hence why both sides wanted one. With the Zandalari out of the pick the Alliance had free reign over the open sea to attack the Horde whereever it wanted.
Mmhmm, sure, whatever you say. The Alliance was totally like a week away from conquering all of Kalimdor, 3 days after they had no forces to commit to Kalimdor, and hanging derplion flags from Orgrimmar’s walls.
I don’t agree with that. There was some infrastructure damaged/destroyed. The treasure vault was looted. And removing a head of state, even though replaced, causes chaos and weakens the nation.
More damage than just the fleet being destroyed was done. And notably the way the game addresses the aftermath seems to reflect that. The Alliance NPCs do refer to it as a victory. The Horde NPCs do act like it was a big hit. I would argue Blizzard was clearly trying to portray a success, just not an unqualified success.
Two things can be true at once. Sure, the Alliance forces were stretched thin. But the Horde forces were still worse off.
I think the problem here is that you guys are discussing this as an immediate timeframe. The Horde lose Zandalar and the next day Orgrimar falls. And that is just crazy.
Both sides fully committed to the Kul’tiran/Zandalari fronts. Winning there was the path to victory. The Alliance was winning. Think of it closer to the battle of Stalingrad in WW2. That battle happened in Aug '42 to Feb '43. So, years before the actual end of the war. But it was the turning point. Germany couldn’t recover from those losses. Similarly, losing Zandalar and all the troops/resources/etc. put into was something the Horde could not recover from. Once that was lost the Horde was going to lose the war, it was just a matter of time. Yes, it would take the Alliance a lot of resources and manpower. Yes, it would have taken time. But the Horde would fall. And everyone knew it. That is why Baine wanted to negotiate. That is why Nathanos said the Alliance had victory in their grasp.
The unholy wheeze I left out at this
The kink for black dragons runs in the family I suppose. Truly amazing how art imitates life.
I was going for more “Oh snap, my backup mom was trying to kill everyone I know actually” but you put a …fun… spin on it.