Halford Wyrmbane says: My king, the attack on Zuldazar was a resounding success.
Master Mathias Shaw says: The Horde is losing on all fronts. The Alliance should achieve victory in a matter of weeks.
Nathanos Blightcaller says: My queen...reports are coming in from all outposts. The Alliance is tightening its grip. Victory is within their grasp.
We are all well aware that number losses don’t mean anything in Warcraft. The Alliance is down to farmers according to Genn in “Lost Honor” and they still come out on top in 8.1, even with the Night Elves and Gilneans heading to Darkshore. Hell, the Darkshore Warfront itself shows that numbers don’t mean anything on multiple levels: first, the Night Elves are back in full force, despite the War of the Thorns and the burning of Teldrassil having culled countless of them, and second, the warfront gameplay itself shows that no matter how many die there will always be more coming back, and that named characters, even mini-bosses, never actually even die any way. If named characters like Thisalee Crow, Jarod Shadowsong, and Mordent Evershade never die and always come back each turn over, and if unnamed characters are perpetually replaced by a limitless supply of more unnamed characters, they are not resources being drained.
But the narrative does its best to completely look the other way on the matter of gameplay. So lets see what the narrative actually has to say about who would lose more:
From A Good War:
When the final numbers were tallied, there would be more slain Horde than kaldorei.
From
Elegy:
All who could walk were pressed into service. Even those generally regarded as civilians—tailors, food merchants, innkeepers—had learned over centuries how to fight well enough to defend themselves.
…
Delaryn watched, feeling wretched, as those she had ostensibly been sent here to protect joined their Sentinel sisters in racing silently across the bridges, armed with bows and daggers.
From Terran Gregory at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHc8le_Qpk&t=10m04s :
Here name is Shendruk. She was created for this cutscene. We imagined that this is someone who’s been actually probably a soldier on the battle lines in this region, you know, between like the orcish line of going into Ashenvale. She’s probably a character who’s been there, right, and that had some experience. And I know there’s been some conversation about the way she talks about Night Elves. Part and parcel, right, when you’re not talking about the game mechanics, right - we know that Night Elves are insanely powerful - but part and parcel, if you’ve lived in this world, there’s going to be a lot of Night Elves in this forest that are just civilians, right? When she’s been patrolling that area, by and large, she’s probably only witnessed, you know, conflicts between the normal Night Elves. You know, the ones that just live [there]. You would have never encountered the Archdruid. You never would have ever encountered [a “single Night Elf” that “could do all that”], right? So a lot of her impressions are just based on like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen- I’ve had scuffles with the Night Elves for however many years and I’ve never had any trouble with them,” right?
From Terran Gregory at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHc8le_Qpk&t=52m58s :
She’s very dismissive. And the faces even, right? Incredibly well animated. While he knows- * Points dramatically at Nathanos * - He knows exactly how serious this is. And she’s all like, “Pff. Whatever,” because again, as we talked at the beginning, she has dealt with, you know, ordinary Night Elves probably her whole career defending, you know, the Barrens fronts. Never personally encountered Malfurion. But he has * Pointing at Nathanos again. * He knows exactly who he’s talking about.
From A Good War:
Sylvanas Windrunner took a deep breath and then hissed it out in frustration. “If we have no other options, I will handle them myself.”
Saurfang said nothing for a while. It was a bad idea, but at the moment, it was the best one they had.
Saurfang and Sylvanas had discussed strategy and tactics for days, and it had become clear that there were two huge, inescapable points of failure in their plan: Malfurion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind. The leaders of the night elves were powerful, dangerous, and perhaps even unbeatable on the field of battle. No matter how surprised the kaldorei would be by this attack, those two would be a terror for the Horde once the fighting began. They had lived for so long, and survived so much, that Saurfang had to consider the possibility that they could hold off the Horde long enough for the Alliance to send help. Ashenvale was their land, after all. They would rally nature itself to their cause.
Sylvanas could match one of them—perhaps—but even she knew that taking them on by herself was . . . not an ideal tactic.
And you know who’s not at the Darkshore Warfront? Sylvanas. And rally nature is exactly what I said before, a limitless resource that, every time the Alliance takes Darkshore back, over and over again undoes all the damage the Forsaken and Horde did when they held Darkshore.
But to tie everything together, in the War of the Thorns, the Horde lost more people than the Night Elves did, even when among the Night Elves fighting were tailors, food merchants, and innkeepers. And this is reflected in the understanding of the Night Elves held by an orcish lieutenant stationed at Darkshore now in her history of mostly having fought with civilian Night Elves. And that’s not even the same force the Horde will be facing now when the Night Elves return:
From Terran Gregory at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHc8le_Qpk&t=58m07s :
It’s very much Sentinel and Warden inspired. Right? And Wardens are, as we know, the keepers of vengeance. And while they were crated very specifically they’re still, you know, at their core a Night Elf institution. The concept of wielding vengeance as a weapon. And I felt that actually factored into this. This was just my feeling in putting this story together. If they are capable of being empowered by vengeance, then that means they’re more powerful after they lost Teldrassil than they were during the fight of Teldrassil.
Perhaps, but that’s not the narrative we have in 8.1 so far. And even what we know of Sylvanas’ plans for beyond 8.1, they revolve around Derek and the Proudmoores rather than Darkshore - and even then, as we saw with the Abyssal Scepter, the Horde’s War Campaign plans are not determined to end in success.
![:sparkling_heart:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sparkling_heart.png?v=6" ":sparkling_heart:")