This seems like a far more likely angle. He was a noble once, but he hasn’t been a noble for a very, very long time and he is probably optimistic enough for someone sufficiently cunning to take advantage of.
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So… Sylvanas knew that Anduin would assume that she’d go to Undercity, so she laid a trap at the expense of Undercity, because it was more of a strategic advantage for the Horde to lose Undercity than Orgrimmar. So, if Anduin hadn’t had his eyes Lordaeron, then it would have actually been more beneficial to the Alliance?
Also, again, it suggested that the Alliance was after territory, not Sylvanas, because Sylvanas had otherwise been based out of Orgrimmar, and had to return to Undercity to set her trap.
I mean, geographically speaking, Thunderbluff is more secured by territory than Orgrimmar. It being the heart of political power doesn’t mean it’s the heart of the territory. Saurfang even worried that their port might be a considerable weakpoint.
I mean, hell, the Alliance had set up two forts already in Durotar. I’ve levelled an orc, I’ve seen them. It can’t be that hard.
Also, Gilneas isn’t exactly Alliance territory. It’s unclaimed because of the whole, y’know, having its entire coast fall off into the ocean, then being Blighted, then the Forsaken successfully routing the Gilneans from Gilneas. There were certainly no ports in Gilneas.
And, if Valgarde can be used to attack Undercity, then why couldn’t Valiance Keep be used to attack Orgrimmar/Bilgewater Harbor.
Good question, but let’s not forget two important facts:
- The lion’s share of the Horde army was in Darkshore. It was, by all measures, a pyrric victory.
- The Alliance already had ships on the way. They had to turn around while en-route to Kalimdor and head to Lordaeron.
The opportunity to take Orgrimmar was there. The Horde weren’t at home, and the Alliance navy was coming down the barrel.
Also, they can teleport troops and have a spaceship. So, again, the whole “nautical warfare” point might be moot.
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The Horde takes over them in their questing.
Throughout BfA it was treated as Alliance territory.
Because Valgarde is a lot closer lorewise to northern Tirisfal than Valiance Keep is to Orgrimmar. Valgarde was actually part of the Kingdom of Lordaeron’s territory in the Third War.
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The Horde’s army isn’t really the issue in any theoretical attack on Orgrimmar, it’s Orgrimmar’s naval and coastal defenses. Defending a coastal position, especially something like a port, is militarily far easier than it is to attack one. Again, this is why the Alliance had to bring overwhelming firepower to Tirisfal despite the fact that they were attacking a lightly defended beach.
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We don’t know how far the ships had gotten, and without any logistical support in Northern Kalimdor (which they wouldn’t have had with Teldrassil and Darkshore gone) they were massively overextended in the great sea.
It’s the Draenei who have the spaceship so you’d want to take that up with Velen.
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Anyway, you can argue the theoretical merits of the Alliance choosing to focus on Northern Kalimdor all you want, but the point is that attacking the Horde in the northern eastern kingdoms still made strategic sense (even if you don’t think it was the most optimal strategy) and wasn’t just an opportunistic land grab.
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No…she went there, and he followed.
Hence “we have her cornered.” The Alliance had been trying to hunt down Sylvanas and her retinue (thus Saurfang being there with her) to preemptively end the war, and had tracked them to Lordaeron.
It wasn’t some coincidence where they arrived at the Undercity to conquer it and Sylvanas happened to also be there; they went to the Undercity because she’d gone there. If she’d gone to Orgrimmar, they’d have gone there instead. But she didn’t go to Orgrimmar because she didn’t have the option of plague-bombing the orcs’ capital city to cripple the Alliance’s army.
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Seriously.
Any logic about historical warfare is so hilariously inapplicable to this setting. The Horde has aircraft carriers in the Nazmir battlefront. But their navy is crap compared to the Zandalari’s, who despite having ships that wouldn’t look out of place in the Peloponnesian War, are the most feared maritime power. Because their ship’s ballistas have the range, accuracy and payload of tomahawk missiles.
Because magic.
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We’re arguing the merits as a proxy for the actual question: was Anduin using the Burning of Teldrassil to justify an imperial land-grab? To answer this question, we are discussing if it was more tactically-optimal to strike Undercity than Orgrimmar? Because, if it was more tactically-optimal, then the decision was based in strategy, not imperialist motives (or, more realistically: careless writing), because disabling Orgrimmar would have been a more “decisive” victory against the Horde.
Thus, the argument for “it is more tactically-optimal to attack Lordaeron” is based on the logistics of moving that army. The counter is, "given the circumstances and available technology, it was just as easy to mobilize the army against Orgrimmar as it was Lordaeron, therefore, there was no, or minimal, strategic reason to attack Lordaeron over Orgrimmar, so it must have been motivated by imperialist motives (or, again, careless writing).
See below too, that taking Undercity, in and of itself, isn’t indicative. It’s taking Undercity, then taking Arathi, then supporting Kul Tiras, then denying aid to the kaldorei, all in unison, that makes me go 
Per the wiki:
The cost, however, would be that their holdings in the Eastern Kingdoms would likely be susceptible to reprisal, especially Sylvanas’ own capital, the Undercity.
Prior to the War of Thorns, Sylvanas assumed that they’d go for Undercity next, presumably to secure the Eastern Kingdoms while the Horde held Kalimdor, effectively dividing the planet in half. Perhaps, and it seems likely, but we don’t know for sure.
In isolation, capturing Undercity would have probably been alright, and there wouldn’t have been a debate. But, it’s not Undercity alone. My original point was that going for Undercity instead of Orgrimmar, then going for Arathi, then sending support to Kul Tiras… All of Anduin’s big moves were specifically targeting human kingdoms, so much so when Tyrande asked for aid in Darkshore, he’d already exhausted their troops. Thus, it seems like Anduin may have had underlying, imperialist motives (even though, the writers probably didn’t intend that).
EDIT: Also, the implication of all of this is that Blizzard writes any of their characters to be motivated by strategy instead of personal spite, which is a pretty wobbly assumption.
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The Horde has a carrier aircraft too. So does the Alliance. They both seem to have a few, or at least one that really gets around a lot and has a superb pit crew.
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Sigh … its pointless to argue military logistics. Especially with the main Horde CO’s main priority was to use tactics that maximized death tolls … on both sides. She was aiming for double-edged collateral.
Which means theoretical matchups are nearly impossible, when before they were just absurdly difficult. Like, just look at Darkshore. The only possible way that anything that happened in that Warfront or the buildup to it makes sense was if Sylvanas was exclusively relying on escalation tactics. To try to goad the Alliance into opening up a front there. Which is why despite being there for months the Bilgewater and Forsaken defense were kind of laughable; why there was no strategic value in where they were blighting; and the raising of Undead NEs literally only seeming to exist to piss the NEs off more.
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Holding Tirisfal required ensuring that the Horde couldn’t encircle Alliance forces there by way of Arathi and then use that to attack Gilneas, cutting Lordaeron off from the rest of the Alliance. Holding Arathi meant holding the northern Eastern Kingdoms, thus securing the Alliance’s northern flank in the Eastern Kingdoms and protecting the Alliance’s military and industrial heartland.
To have any hope of dislodging the Horde from Northern Kalimdor, the Alliance needed more naval power since the Horde was courting the Zandalari, and the Kul’tirans were the ones to supply it. Following that, the Alliance needed naval superiority on the Great Sea in order to reinforce Kalimdor, hence the Battle of Dazar’alor.
Then Blizzard open-palm slammed the abort button on the faction war and had everyones navies fall into a giant hole created by Azshara.
Even if you were totally correct and it was an opportunistic attack because Anduin wanted to restore the human kingdoms, that still wouldn’t be imperialism. It was the Horde that was the imperialist entity in the Eastern Kingdoms.
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I only know the names of the ones shot down. I think the idea is they’re hard to make. Definitely an end game unit you’d be capped at having only one with if this were a RTS.
But a nation’s military arsenal is the same as it’s population; whatever the story needs it to be in that moment. Either bountiful enough to never be concerned with in the slightest or incredibly scarce.
And honestly I’m fine with inconsistent military hardware. Because a lack of it is never played up for cheap melodrama.
Perhaps because I am very fond of one of the races that only finds relevance in the story through that hardware, but I’m a little more cynical on that point.
Military/Magic Tech advancement had remained “relatively” consistent up through WoD. At least naval and artillery. Which, frankly, worked out to even the playing field between both Factions over time. But with the massive neglect of the Horde in Legion, and the sudden influx or ascension of a plethora of demigod tier Heroes on the Alliance in that same expansion; that inconsistency of Military Hardware really stretched the Horde in a role that they were already absurdly stretched in to begin with.
For example, the Horde plan of invading Teldrassil without any means to get to (let alone on) a Skyscraper sized tree in the middle of a sea. Outside of like 3 ships they stole from the Kaldorei? I get that the Horde navy took quite the hit during Legion, but the ENTIRE navy was gone? When the Alliance apparently had a ton of ships to spare (and get blown up); both in their pursuit of Talanji AND their tumble into Naz’jatar (and most of the latter weren’t Kul Tiras vessels). It was ridiculous on several fronts…
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Well I’d smuggle in some Warlocks ahead of schedule. Park 'em in strategic but hidden locations. Then have some Rogues meet them. Summon the army on up.
Or more plainly a portal. Or flying mounts. Or maybe the demolishers were originally in place to shoot soldiers unto it. Who knows. Not really that important.
Don’t try to approach Azeroth with Earth logic. You’ve already put more thought into it than the developers have the second you do.
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OK … we need to be very clear here. As inconsistently as it is portrayed, Portal magic has always been implied to be difficult to use for LONG periods; and when trying to transport LARGE amounts of resources and manpower. They may not appear that way in game due to player convenience, but in both form and function its useful … on smaller and periodic scales. And limited in that use. Which is why even Jaina and Kadghar traditionally only portal small groups. And they are essentially gods.
Until proven otherwise, it is best to take Portal Magic with a grain of salt. And regard it in the same way you might regard Hearthstones or Resurrection Magics. Even the BEs and NBs (masters of that specialty) use Teleportation merely to support and augment traditional military tech and tactics. Not as a replacement for them. And we have no idea how the Warlock Gates are actually represented in lore.
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I’m going to stop you right there.
Droite I appreciate your posts, I really do. But at best WoW operates on early 00s RTS logic. Where one damaged trireme can transport four individual hoplites as easily as it transports four war elephants.
Your facts and logic have no purchase here, feeble Earth human
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Exactly this is more of what the alliance needs more of. This and the Purge sparked more conversation than any other event that has happened in wow.
Sadly Blizzard keeps going down the path of Justifying the Alliance actions at these events like they need to keep them morally righteous removing any grey the faction had.
Ultimately the Alliance has become more and more like a neutral faction rather than a competing force with the Horde. All of its actions are white washed by the authors. its Heros are written as paragons of morality and righteousness. Any outspoken violent characters opinions or actions are either shot down and pushed to the side as outliers or they flipped to the Neutral position. Blizzard forgot that these factions are supposed to be at war and have reasons to fight one another. They are too focused on making sure they drive a lesson of morality into the playerbase on why war is bad.
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Then we should expect nothing but the writing quality that we are getting. And then frankly, the Horde has no real chance of getting any development beyond reinforcing our position as a tag-along in Alliance character’s stories. And, next time Blizz needs a Faction Conflict, it doesn’t matter how little sense (or even feasable) that role happens to be … it will be the Horde that’s forced into villain role.
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In regards to the naval conflict, im just upset we never got a proper cinematic of the Zandalari & Kul Tiran navies clashing on the high seas. But who wanted to see that when we could have another 12 cinematics showing us why Saurfang is sad or something?
It’s just really disappointing tbh. I enjoyed both the Zandalar and Kul Tiran questing. They were the most interesting parts of BFA for me. Especially since those were two places i wanted to see for a long time. I love the cultures they gave to both and love how both of them feel like actual Kingdoms rather than some shanty little town with a small zone. But they really did both the Zandalari & Kul Tirans dirty in regards to the naval action.
Also thought it was really really lame how in the Dazar’alor cinematic that the only Kul Tiran ship was Jaina’s. The rest were standard Stormwind vessels.
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Those introductory Stormheim quests are some of the best Alliance war content in the game imo. No hamfisted moral lesson, no belaboured whinging about how they’re only doing this because they must, just Genn seeing his moment to strike and taking it.
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Ideally if we had another faction conflict, since both factions are playable neither should be the villain and there shouldn’t be a clear protagonist/antagonist theme at all.
Rather, I’d prefer both were antagonists and then both had protagonist characters within the factions, not to chide the antagonists as being in the wrong, but just being a little more heroic than the antagonists. So we can get a really cool factional conflict where both sides have good reasons for doing it but we also aren’t being shamed and talked down to by the “good guys” like Khadgar who are above the conflict.
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