How Can We Redeem/Rebuild The Horde (Actual Horde Edition)

It’s not what you’re hearing from me. What I am saying is that the way WoT was written was a stick in the eye of the actual Night Elf power fantasy. I don’t mean to say that the Horde couldn’t have/shouldn’t have won - but it should have been written differently in a way that respected that power fantasy.

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Yeah should’ve been Giant Elementals vs Wild Gods.

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Wasn’t it written in one of the books that the Horde suffered 8:1 losses against Night Elf civilians?

I recognize that this wasn’t portrayed in the game, but even in the game the Horde advance is stopped twice before it manages to deus ex machina its way through.

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If Teldrassil was sucessfully defended, I wouldn’t have minded if the Horde won other victories. They could have won Arathi, or outright successfully defended Undercity. Wouldn’t have minded it.

Sure - or the Horde could have used Goblin mechs and Forsaken blight tanks to scorch the land as they advanced to deprive the Night Elves of their cover and their terrain advantage.

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What I’m saying is that the Night Elves during the WoT were significantly hamstrung because their military was elsewhere. Natural defense and ambush tactics can only take you so far when there is a number difference as significant as there was in the WoT.

:pancakes:

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And I think that’s totally fair. The writers were in such a hurry to get the whole war done for the prepatch that they didn’t take the time and care that would have been needed to show this. At least Robert Brooks tried to get some of that into AGW, but ironically, that’s not the book that’s aimed at the Night Elf fan audience.

Honestly, I think having both capital assaults be repelled would have gone over a lot better with the playerbase.

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That just means the Horde apparently still had enough soldiers to fight the Alliance until a draw even after taking those losses. It’s not worth anything when it’s not reflected anywhere, and you still get smashed to bits.

Erm…I don’t know.

8:1 kill/death ratio for civilians and city guards against the entirety of the Horde war machine sounds pretty significant to me.

It’s true that the Horde eventually broke through. But should a single race, without its military, be able to fully stop an entire faction military?

:pancakes:

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In pre-modern warfare, high casualties should be expected when attacking even an inferior defending force on its own home territory - Is 8 to 1 the appropriate ratio? [shrug] No idea.

But the Horde army should have been vulnerable to Night Elf tactics given that it was hauling its supply train and those catapults with them through a forest.

Again, not to say that the Horde’s sheer numerical advantage shouldn’t have won out in the end - it should have - but it should have been portrayed in a way that made a bit more sense.

I don’t think anyone’s arguing that it is inappropriate, just that the portrayals you are looking for DO exist.

Are they portrayed well? God no, the WoT is a narrative nightmare for everyone.

Does the fact that Teldrassil is lost anyway make this feel like cold comfort? I think I can say pretty definitively that’s a yes.

But the specific thing I’m objecting to here is the notion that the WoT was some resounding, face-smashing, easy roll to victory for the Horde that made its players feel great. It wasn’t. I know there’s the temptation to view a bitter loss as something the other side got hyped about, but it’s basically your Battle for Dazar’alor - Horde players feel like garbage about it, and it’s a giant “meh” for Alliance players.

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I dunno. If the entire horde could be successfully repelled by civilians, that doesn’t sound like the faction should be strong enough to win any other battles anyway. Why wouldn’t the horde get run out of all of their territory at that point? I think it’d make even less sense for them to have won anything.

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Given the takes I see people make much earlier in the thread, I don’t think people read AGW and instead read Elegy if anything.

The problem is these losses are not reflect Horde side, at all. It’s not even mentioned in game that so many Horde died. No mention from Saurfang or Sylvanas about how depleted their forces are, and it’s simply shown as the Horde still being at full strength. If it’s just told, but never shown at all, it’s completely hollow and pointless. Because ultimately, it didn’t affect the invasion of kul’tiras, or the warfronts, or the defense of Zandalar, or seemingly anything at all.

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I will stipulate that there is little or nothing for Horde players to feel great about in the WoT. Hell, there was little or nothing for Horde players to feel great about in all of BfA.

My point way back when was simply that I thought that a lot of folks were misstating what the Night Elf power fantasy actually was.

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I’ll grant that it has been easy to misunderstand with the proposals that Tyrande eliminate the Horde single-handedly that were popular for awhile.

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Oh, I am not saying that there aren’t some Alliance fans who have the Queen Azshara conquering army power fantasy. Those folks absolutely exist. I just think that they don’t reflect the majority of folks - I think that they are a vocal minority.

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I would say if Horde failed to torch Teldrassil then the entire nature and scale of the war would be different.
So if Horde fails to get past Darkshore and we make Ashenvale into a warfront then you should rewrite the entire BFA war story from that point onwards.

Heck maybe Rastakhan didnt need to die and Lordaeron didnt need to be green pooped.

What if hear me out.
They werent civilians in this rewrite and, I don’t understand why people keep fixating on this.

In the game you are fighting sentinels and ancients with druids and priestesses and other things.

You weren’t fighting meat vendors and innkeepers.
seriously is blizzards saying some platitudes in some text enough to ruin the entire content?

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But it did. Horde lost every battle after WoT.

Edit: I’m also certain Nathanos comments about how the Horde is losing on all fronts at some point in the expansion.

:pancakes:

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