True. Which is why so many of us, myself included, kept bringing up Stormheim. It was our only real Casus Belli that even remotely made sense.
Alas. Turns out Blizzard’s developers were just blatantly lying to us to sell us on a war that never made sense to begin with.
War of Thorns was legitimately good until the Warbringer’s cutscene. The invasion plan was legitimately morally gray. And all the quests, even the dailies, let you as a player dictate how honorable the fight was.
And then you were forced to stand by and watch a firebombing of a civilian occupied city in fragrant violation of the plan for literally no reason.
It certainly was a plot twist that subverted my expectations. In the same way I wouldn’t expect a perfectly delicious spinach and mushroom omelette to contain shards of glass at the end.
I personally didn’t find it “legitimately good,” or at least, it didn’t sound that way from the description, since I never did it on any of my Horde toons. (Tragic Night Elves calling you out as they die? Hard pass.) But the cutscene made it worse by an order of magnitude.
Firebombing of a civillian population is an acceptable tactic in total war. Both the Germans and the Anglo-American axis did so with great enthuiasm in World War 2, and the Americans would continue that tradition in their successive land wars in Asia.
And warfare between the Alliance and Horde has never been less than total.
Until Sylvannas walked away from the Horde there was still room for the war to end with honor and victory for the Horde… if it’s greatest general hadn’t betrayed it from practically the outset.
Occupying Teldrassil so it could be used as a bargaining chip to secure Azerite was a good idea. The Alliance would be wary to attack the Horde with a population center under the Banshee Queen’s guns.
Instead she literally burns that trump card for reasons that only made sense retroactively. It was incoherent edge Lord nonsense and the fact your character could do nothing when you were obliged to decide the fate of civilains through the whole War of Thorns was insane.
It was bad writing and game design. Period.
At least one would have cared, that being me, considering I’ve been irritated by this newest cliche round of villain bat mauling. Part of me wouldn’t mind seeing a faction war where Alliance are the clear aggressors, but I think, at this point, dumping faction war as story arcs all together would be the best thing for everyone involved. They clearly don’t know how to do it correctly, assuming it even can be.
Honestly Stormheim wasn’t too bad. As a Forsaken player I was game for securing more Valkyr. That’s super vital to the Forsaken.
But I was still operating under the hope maybe EoN had been partially retconned and she was going to be a fun, chaotic neutral character. Morally dubious at best but regardless of motives always acting in the best interest of the Forsaken and Horde as they were one in the same as her own.
Instead. Welp EoN did get partially retconned to make her even more evil. As did the invasion of Gilneas and even the Wrathgate. Weee.
The problem I have with this, with my comprehension of events is that the WoT for the Horde was a failure. They needed a quick march to darkshore relatively unopposed which they didn’t get. Night Elf resistance forced them to re-route around felwood (I think) which enabled the Night Elf Army time to return once the ruse was discovered, and the bulk of the citizens of Teldrassil to be evacuated, leaving only a tree (which had to be garisoned) and a small population as a bargaining chip.
I think the evacuation’s success wasn’t part of Windrunner’s plan. Like we know her goal was to kill as many people as possible. So she thought that was going to be roasting tens of thousands of souls like marshmallows for Jailor smores. But, well canonically there was enough Nelves to fill every room in Stormwind and still flood the city with such numbers that they poured out into Elwyn and Goldshire.
So, either way you look at it Saurfang was right. She failed.
bruh moment
A war of aggression isnt good. No matter how hard you try to paint your actions as heroic.
Well I was told to expect morally gray. And it can be morally gray. Good from a certain perspective.
Instead we got what we got. Mustache twirling evil Windrunner.
Man, remember when the BFA opening cinematic first came out? Windrunner leaps from the safety of Capitol City’s walls and destroys an Alliance siege tower. She roars For the Horde and Saurfang echoes it, waving the red banner and rallying the troops as we see a Troll and Tauren leap into battle.
The 4 OG races in effect as the iconic battle cry is sounded. Man I was pumped when I first saw that. Ready to fight the Lion tooth and nail For The Horde!
Then we get context and everything cool about that moment was poisoned.
A army invading a nation that did nothing to provoke them, isnt grey, its literally black, BFA was black the moment they said the horde invaded first.
This might be true if you weren’t part of the alliance. The invasion of Night Elf territories is completely validated by the absence of the Night Elf army whe were instead intent on attacking horde in Silithis.
The last word we have from Mop is its still blighted. Anything else is head canon nonsense.
The horde was marching on silithis to secure a wmd, they dont own that zone, zero claim, the alliance didnt even go to attack, just to defend, if the horde marched there and never attacked the nelves there wouldn’t be any war.
I feel like the horde players where completely enraptured by sylvie saying for the horde in the cinematic, they all forgot all the other stuff that was released at the same time, that all pointed to the horde starting the war, the feature trailers, what the dev’s said, the previews of before the storm.
The horde where all happy that she was like “For the horde.” They never bothered to ask “Why is anduin and genn standing together attacking undercity Why would anduin who championed peace do that?” I knew something terrible must have happened, that the horde burned the tree.
alright, then i guess that before the storm is not cannon.
It’s a lot more inconsistent than that.
Cataclysm: Held by the Alliance and the Blackhowl, livable and occupied. Battle for Gilneas takes place on the coastline, with the Gilneans having a stronghold on the northern mainland (presence of the Greymane Wall in the battleground) already and the Forsaken invading by sea.
Mists: Entirely blighted in spite of having been under Alliance control and the Blight having only been deployed in the northern parts of the peninsula, and needs to be cleansed so Gilneas can be rebuilt. Ignores that the Alliance occupied Blight-bombed zones of Gilneas City with little problem. Unoccupied and abandoned.
Dave Kosak (2015 tweet): Heavily blighted, but there are pockets of safety for careful travelers.
Before the Storm/Elegy/A Good War: Blighted, but home to Forsaken refugees. Also simultaneously referred to as empty and abandoned. Apparently not held by the Alliance, as Teldrassil was supposed to split the Alliance by getting Genn to focus on reclaiming Gilneas.
Battle for Azeroth: The Forsaken are preparing a blight in Shadowfang Keep to use against Gilneas, and the Arathi warfront is to be used by the Horde as a launching point to invade Gilneas, implying it’s back in the Alliance’s hands.
Is it blighted? Is it occupied? Is it abandoned? Is it held by the Alliance or the Horde? It keeps going one way and the other, like some four-way yo-yo.
I specifically said supporting the burning, not mocking the players.
So the night elf army wasn’t going to attack the Horde army? What were they planning on doing? Staring at the Horde angrily as they walked passed them to set up an outpost to mine azerite?
Because anything more than that would absolutely be an aggressive military action.