Let’s say they got rid of High King and instead elected someone to a military position with supreme command over all Alliance military forces as they always should have done and indeed have a precedent for in Anduin Lothar. Frankly, this makes the most sense because High King and Warchief don’t work very well in this scenario because said rulers are constantly pulled between commanding said forces whilst seeing to the needs of their own people. It’s too much and in many cases leads to biases that can affect the overall war effort.
That’s why, in my opinion, the Supreme Commander should by definition NOT be a faction leader of the Alliance but instead a proven military commander with sufficient political experience to smoothly navigate the upper echelons and get the support he/she needs to keep the Alliance war effort in top shape. Let the faction leaders worry about the political angles as that was always their primary responsibility and let the Supreme Commander worry about his/hers: winning wars and keeping Alliance interests/citizens safe from aggressors.
Personally, my pick for Supreme Commander would probably be Halford Wormbane or Shandris Feathermoon. They both have extensive combat experience and are well versed in working alongside the other races. I also wouldn’t be opposed to Turalyon, although in his case he is admittedly a bit out of touch and could use more time becoming better acquainted with the current state of Azeroth and its races.
What do you think? Who would you choose for Supreme Commander?
the obvious choice is Turalyon. I don’t recall him losing a single battle other than warfronts, but i don’t think they’re really canon. He did what even Lothar couldn’t… pushed the horde back to the dark portal, then he went to, and then through the portal and spent 100 years fighting the burning legion… a foe no one had been able to destroy, and leads the organization that led to their ultimate demise.
He is clearly the most experienced commander the Alliance has at its disposal, as well as the most successful. He knows war, he knows how the horde thinks, and he fought a war for 100 years, which means he can be patient.
I dunno man, I’d give the T-dawg his due and put him in charge.
Obvious choice is Turalyon, but I think someone like Shandris would be ideal for it, too.
The issue with a single, solitary faction leader is because they rarely represent the interests of the -whole- Alliance; they can’t wear two hats. You either put your people first, or the Alliance first, not both, and I know the story writers like to pretend otherwise.
I love Anduin as a character, but I despise him as the faction leader; the Alliance shouldn’t want peace after what they’ve been through, they need justice, and retribution. They need blood for blood, because the Horde has proven it will never stop. Shandris is experienced, fierce, and uncompromising, in every depiction of her.
She’s also, most importantly, not a human.
I’m all in favor of a Supreme Leader position returning.
Fixed it for you. Kaldorei don’t need a human telling their sentinels how to operate. None of the other races of the Alliance need the weakest and most worthless race telling them how to operate.
Because the entire fleet was a continent away and was trying to reach the night elves. As for trying to retake Darkshore, tell me will you KEEP Darkshore if Sylvanas manages to use the full fleet of the Zandalari to move her troops around?
i don’t trust genn to act on behalf the entire alliance interests.
Tyrande has proved recently that she is someone who acts on emotion and she would probably send the entire alliance to kalimdor.
jaina needs to prove be worthy of the title of lord admiral first and see if she finally learned from her mistakes.
Velen would probably let the horde kill us all.
anduin is too young and peace doesn’t work.
The only true choice is turalyon or alleria, the supreme commanders of the alliance!
hero’s of the second war, thousands of years fighting demons,with a lot of tactical and military experience.
The only downside for them is that they have been away from azeroth for far too long, but that is why they should have advisors.
<sigh> Fine, I’ll take your bait.
Genn disobeyed him in Legion and probably got nothing more than a stern talking-to because everyone who signed up for that mission was probably a volunteer. Rogers sure leapt at the opportunity.
People question him all the time and, when they disagree with his opinion of how to run things, they seem to do their own thing. See: Tyrande and Darkshore.
She won’t see any punishment for just wanting to defend her people when she sees the Alliance as incapable.
If the leaders said “You can’t be the king of Stormwind and the leader of the Alliance at the same time” he’d probably go “gosh that hurts my feelings a bit but I guess you’re right” and appoint someone Supreme Commander.
As it stands, however, the High King title holds surprisingly little weight. He gives the Alliance a general direction to go, and his subordinates take care of how to actually see that done (aside from one “brilliant” instance where he filled Orgrimmar with spies and left the Undercity completely ignored). Halford Wyrmbane is the one in charge of the military and is the one getting things done.
I’d argue that Wyrmbane’s a pick on par with Turalyon. He might not be the ultimate paladin of human potential (instead just being… um, a pretty good paladin probably?), but he already leads the elite combined forces of the Alliance. The 7th Legion has everyone in it, and has been in every single one of the modern Warcraft conflicts.
Turalyon has spent the last thousand years of his life doing nothing but fighting the Legion. If we had to fight the Legion? That would be pretty awesome. But the Horde is far and away tougher and more diverse than the Burning Legion. Just like the 7th Legion, they’ve got the experience of the last half-dozen super-threats to Azeroth.
So, Wrymbane already has the leadership chops, bringing the Alliance’s elite through every major crisis since the end of the Second War. Turalyon is a dinosaur by comparison, with a ludicrous amount of time fixated on a single opponent.
The explosive charges are already placed on the boats. Pushing the big red button to set them off doesn’t require sieging Dazar’alor. Anduin just doesn’t care about Tyrande or her people.