It’s kind of, bizarre, that the immediate idea is not retreat. Maybe if you played this launch day, and there was a metric ton of other players it would not have seemed as laughably hopeless.
Gul’Dan summons like every still active major named demon from Warcraft history, and countless reinforcements, and it is not immediately clear this was a set up and you’ve to bounce now.
And we know it was a set up because a Dreadlord replaced Matthias Shaw and gave bad intel, as to draw the forces of Azeroth into an unwinnable battle where they’d suffer hopefully crippling casualties.
The Horde’s contribution to their side of this clustertruck, by the by, is like 7 Dark Rangers, plinking away at the throngs of winged demons darkening the sky. I’m not only unsure how Slyvanas was supposed to save the day there, but as the only lesson of the day has been THERE ARE WAYYYYYY MORE DEMONS THAN WE THOUGHT, why would your kneejerk assumption be she betrayed you?
Would you not think to check in with Vol’Jin? And then ya know, learn he fell in battle and the Horde also had to desperately escape to avoid being overrun?
So, Genn’s attack in Stormheim seems to be wrathful beyond reason. But, luckily for him, she turned out to be evil beyond reason so doing anything to try to destroy her, even when an infinite army of demons is currently invading your world with satanic star destoyers, is totally kosher.
(Commentary): At that point, if the Alliance withdrew the Horde would’ve been overwhelmed by the demons. That is why Varian chose to remain and fight.
(Commentary): It was a situation where if either faction left, the abandoned one would be almost guaranteed to be destroyed. Varian chose to remain rather than forsake the Horde, so when the Horde bounced… it wasn’t a good look.
(Speculative): Communication does not seem to have been at a high point at the time. We already know Dreadlords had infiltrated SI:7, so who’s to say they didn’t sabotage channels of communication as well? After the Broken shore some attempt should’ve been made, but Anduin was sad, and the warhawks were on the loose. So, you can pretty much blame the Alliance for not initiating communication on this one, I think. I’d argue that people like Rogers probably would’ve thrown Horde messengers off the side of the Skyfire into the Maelstrom.
(Commentary): A journal picked up in Azsuna has details of Sylvanas’ plans in Stormheim, so it’s not as if its impossible that Genn knew what she was there for. Likewise, Sylvanas was going to cripple one of our key allies in the fight against the Legion in the process of obtaining her infinite Val’kyr. If you want to ask how Genn is justified in fighting Sylvanas during a Legion invasion, I’d like to hear how you justify Sylvanas fighting Odyn and the Valarjar in the middle of a Legion invasion.
Oh come on, there are a lot of things you can do, but making that Captain Chin’s motive is too much. In the cinematic he’s outright requesting more air support from Windrunner’s archers, he clearly was not concerned about the Horde lines breaking. In fact, he had no way of seeing the Horde’s current status where he was positioned. He was in a ravine surrounded by high cliffs.
I’m sorry, the guy saw a bulwark of top tier demons and thought “we got this”.
(Speculative): And if the Horde had not left, then yeah, they might’ve. I think it’s evident that if either side pulled out though, the other would’ve been devastated.
Taoshi says: The situation in Stormwind is worse than we thought. We have a plan to reveal Detheroc for the imposter that he is. Master Shaw?
Master Mathias Shaw says: First, allow me to express my gratitude that you risked your lives to rescue me.
Master Mathias Shaw says: Taoshi is correct. The situation is dire and degrading quickly. The Alliance is about to launch an attack on the Horde.
Master Mathias Shaw says: Posing as me, Detheroc is whispering lies about the Horde in the ears of the new king of Stormwind. He must be stopped before it is too late.
Master Mathias Shaw says: The plan is simple: sneak into Stormwind, expose Detheroc, and then kill him.
Said Dreadlord was still posing as Shaw throughout the initial Rogue Order Hall campaign and trying to get Anduin to go to full war with the Horde, until the Rogue player saves Shaw.
Though, likewise, the Horde never did anything during Legion to try to clear things up, as it didn’t come up until the now infamous Before the Storm, however we now know that If anything it would have been more in Sylvanas’ interest to leave a target on her back and stoke the tension between the Alliance and the Horde so that she could start her war to kill as many people as possible to send them to the Maw.
And it could also explain - assuming Bolvar is correct and the recent kidnapping are just Sylvnas being petty towards the people that have gotten in her way - why Sylvanas did not send her Forsworn after Genn as well, as in all likelihood, despite not abandoning the Night Elves for Gilneas as Sylvanas had expected him to, Genn otherwise probably played exactly into her hand the way she wanted someone to.
It would not be any real comfort, but that could also explain why she let Genn walk away from their fight in Stormheim instead of shooting him in the back as he limped off.
The Horde lines shattered, the Warchief was down, and Varian was nowhere close to Guldan. A few measly minutes that would have resulted in the entire eradication of the Horde leadership would not have bought him the time he needed to chin his way to victory in what so clearly was a settup. Then there would have been no do-overs. No repeat attempts.
Hell, if anything, Sylvanas had a better lay of the conditions of the battle and her call to retreat (which was heard by both sides) saved more lives than it cost (on both sides). Varian overextended and was not in a good position to judge the current tactical status of the battle as a whole. Sylvanas didn’t kill Varian, Varian killed Varian and Sylvanas actually saved more than she sacrificed.
EDIT: Didja notice the Fel Reaver Gul’dan could have summoned at any time?
You misunderstand his motive. It wasn’t some Grand Noble Gesture. It was literally him Trusting her to stick to the plan. They had split up to try to Flank the Demons from the East while Varian led the Alliance up from the South(west?)
He couldn’t see anything what was happening to them so all he could do was push forward.
Actually, they WERE tearing through each wave of demons pretty easily (which, obviously was part of the Trap.) It wasn’t a hopeless case until Guldan sprung the final trap, at which point retreat would of resulted in defeat anyway.
Who says he could summon it at anytime? Who knows what he required to expend to summon that. The cost was probably not something he was willing to pay again so soon.
That is not even sort of the Alliance’s motive. Not even once is that hinted at.
You don’t even see the Horde! At no point is it suggested we have to hold fast together or we’ll be destroyed.
And guess what? We weren’t destroyed. Took a hit but still managed.
[quote=“Exacitor-wyrmrest-accord, post:2, topic:690228”]
I’d argue that people like Rogers probably would’ve thrown Horde messengers off the side of the Skyfire into the Maelstrom.[/quote]
Well how do you know the Horde didn’t send a messenger to explain, and that’s what happened.
I guess it’s impossible to argue the chronology of what happened first there.
Can they not just send someone to Dalaran? Or anything. It’s odd to me two superpowers would have zero reliable methods of communication when there’s no shortage of reliable third parties that could mediate it.
There is also the fact that the explanation that they were being overrun could be a lie. We as players know its not, since we get an omniscient view of things. But if, say there was some sort of communication, the question is, how far do you trust the people on the other side?
I feel like at the start of Legion, everyone (the players, that is) understood that what Sylvanas did wasn’t intended to be malicious. But then Blizzard said “maybe the cutscene that is literally proving that Sylvanas wasn’t betraying the Alliance… is somehow a lie!” and a lot of Alliance players were magically gaslit into erasing their memory of the Horde cutscene. To this day, I’m like… really? Is everybody RP’ing?
Yeah, we even killed our warchief to really sell the lie.
The sheer amount of information that apparently goes solely through Shaw is starting to make me understand why Blizzard thought we’d buy Sylvanas’ excuse to Saurfang for the War of Thorns.
The funny thing is, while Genn’s reaction to the Horde withdrawal is to immediately decry it as betrayal (an assumption that seems to stick Alliance-side throughout the duration of Legion), Varian’s demeanor in that scene comes across as a lot less sure of that as he keeps watching the ridge and sees the wave of demons replace the Horde archers.
It frankly makes it seem like he’d already deduced what probably happened up there. Like the one leader who didn’t survive to escape that battle was also the only one present who seemed to halfway put two-and-two together in the moment and recognize that the Horde had probably been overrun rather than just abandoned the fight.
That said, the whole transittion from scenario-to-cinematic ultimately comes across as a weirdly portrayed mess. Where do all those named demons even go right then? Gul’dan essentially summons an entire army of the Legion’s field commanders from past Azeroth invasions (sans Kil’jaeden and any already dead from WoD) right in the Alliance’s face, springing his trap and poised to bring down a hammer of Legion bosses to wipe them out…
…then suddenly the cinematic kicks in and that entire who’s/who of familiar demonic powerhouses has inexplicably vanished and been replaced with just a bunch of disposable felguards and fel bats.
Well, I mean, they did just reveal that Sylvanas has, in fact, been running a long con on Azeroth for god knows how long. You know, despite having books where she reveals she didn’t want to be Warchief, etc etc. As I’ve said elswhere, welcome to blizzard writing.
Going to try and add my perspective having played this from WoD-Legion launch to leveling alts through it in BFA:
Scenario content like this absolutely feels better from a gameplay perspective when there are more people doing it; The Battle for Lordaeron being another good example. But we can’t be sure of exact numbers because Blizzard has never told us and just due to the limits of tech within the game and/or money they have to be frugal with their model and art assets in all those in-game cinematics. Remember the old Wrathgate cinematic? Looking back on it now it looks like we’re assaulting the Wrathgate with nothing more than a platoon, and from what I’ve seen and read I believe Saurfang and Bolvar brought a lot more than that.
And, it’s easy to get caught up in hindsight. A combined Alliance/Horde force had already stormed Icecrown Citadel and taken down the Lich King not that long ago after all. Up until then the Alliance/Horde champion has accomplished just about every impossible task set upon them and there was no real reason to doubt this would be any different. Even Gul’dan; you don’t actually see him until like Stage 6, or 7? something like that, and he doesn’t start summoning all those named, old-instance boss demons until the very very end. Until then, even with all the reinforcements coming in and even on all my undergeared alts in heirloom gear you just mow down everything with that command aura or whatever it’s called from Varian
Vol’jin? Or Sylvanas? Because judging by the way she flew in on that shiny pre-rendered cinematic as someone who doesn’t play Horde it looks like she’s already the leader of the Horde in how she’s mirroring Varian in that shot, =P But yes, I agree your logic still stands. But Blizzard is silly and things like normal diplomatic channels between sovereign nations are rocket science apparently.
I think Blizzard absolutely intended to send mixed (and different) signals to both factions here in how they ended both versions of this scenario. Gameplay-wise, they’re almost identical, right down to the ping-pong dps’ing of Krosus in Stage 8. Story-wise, they end very different. I don’t think Genn’s wrath is beyond reason; I think it comes from his perspective of what happened here. And from the Horde perspective, Sylvanas did nothing wrong and in fact probably did the only sane thing a ranking military commander could do in that situation.
And I think this is why Alliance/Horde players have such different opinions on what comes next in Stormheim. From an Alliance perspective, it’s an eye-for-an-eye; the Horde already tried to kill them once by leaving them high and dry to die along with their king. From a Horde perspective, WTF?! Genn just comes out of left field and is completely out of control in his anger towards Sylvanas and the Horde.
Which is, kind of the point and completely intentional on the part of Blizzard. For my 2c; I don’t think Genn or Sylvanas is completely wrong (or for that matter, right) in their actions. Legion marked a big change in how WoW expansions kicked off up until that point. While it wasn’t the first time that the combined might of the Alliance and Horde have failed in working together, it definitely was the first in which each faction was left with very differing perspectives of that failure.
