The zandalari and the treaty

I don’t know why people dislike Tyrande and Malfurion. I suspect people on the bandwagon complaining about those two will take any chance at all to disparage them.

What else is new?

3 Likes

Darkshore being lost was sort of weird, but whatever, I can roll with the punches.

King Rastakhan was killed, but of no fault of the Horde. In fact, to the Horde’s benefit, they ousted their attackers, Mekkatorque was taken out of commission and while Jaina didn’t suffer any worthwhile injuries for facing off against the Horde’s strongest, the Alliance paid a lot for that transgression.

The Undercity was still to the Horde’s advantage, as it costed the Alliance a very big chunk of their army, to the point where they had to call upon conscripts. At the end of 8.2.5, Anduin confirms the Alliance only has enough to throw at the Horde, win or lose, in a siege. That’s 100,000 some odd people. That’s really small for a mobile army and stood to lose so much, win or lose. It was a situation they could not feasibly benefit from militarily.

The Horde did not lose the war. There was no surrender. If anything, they were in an even better position to win it, once united.

Losing a few battles does not mean that the war is lost. It’s impossible to kill every enemy an army has fielded, the objective isn’t to do that. The end of a war in ye olden times is the exhausted wealth of the enemy. France had lost its share of battles in the 100 year war and still had a good come-uppance at its end.

You said a lot of words, but at the end of the day:

Q: Who won in Stromgarde and Darkshore war fronts, lorewise?
A: Canonically, the Alliance wins in both. Key old alliance locations, felt right for the story.

The Alliance undeniably won the fourth war.

2 Likes

pretty sure that the alliance never intended to capture or destroy the city only rasthakan, and since he died, there was no reason for the alliance to stay and face the reinforcements.
it was a pretty small strike team that attacked dazarlazor. it wasn’t the entire alliance.

mekkatorke returned, not only stronger but as king of all gnomes.
not even speaking of jaina since she surviving is what lead sylvanas to raise derek to try to use him to kill her, and that backfired considering that baine returned him to her and created a rebellion in the horde.

i think that is safe to say the the blue bois won the war. considering that one of the primarly goals of anduin was to return to peace after sylvanas was gone.

3 Likes

Winning two locations but losing a capital city, a civilian population, and most of their armed forces is at best a Pyrrhic victory for the alliance.

3 Likes

All of which will regenerate by the next expansion, because numbers don’t mean anything in this setting.

2 Likes

The Alliance navy is gone, they’re down to conscripts and their military is incapable of attacking a fortified location without suffering a pyrrhic victory at best.

The Horde is doing a little better but not by much. To say the Alliance won when they’re on the brink of collapse is more than dishonest to the capability of the Horde war machine.

You can lose battles left and right and still win a war, if the enemy exhausts themselves on all resources. But it’s not over until the fat lady sings (surrender), and she’s very shy.

That is logistically impossible. Sieges’re the most lethal battle someone can wage in the middle ages. You need 10:1 odds to even stand a chance at winning, because men die in droves when attacking a fortified location. Which is to the Alliance’s merit, to have gotten so far in Lordaeron, because it was built for just that. Thwarting 10:1 odds.

That was no little strike team. Especially with Mekkatorque, Jaina and the gorilla doing the heavy lifting.

2 Likes

The fat lady in this case being the developers who write the story plainly stating as such:

Q: Who won in Stromgarde and Darkshore war fronts, lorewise?
A: Canonically, the Alliance wins in both. Key old alliance locations, felt right for the story.

We won at Teldrassil and lost every single battle and skirmish that followed up after it. Im not sure why this is such a hard sell.

4 Likes

Yes, if you expect being attacked you do. because you make the preparations.
But there was a suicide mission on nazmir for a reason.

most of the military, horde and zandalari went there and only killed a bunch of troops and when they realized that the alliance target was the city it was too late, they did not get in time to save rasthakan and did not killed anyone of importance. considering that the alliance was planning to use rasthakan/talanji as a hostage so they cannot do anything and that became impossible because rasthakan abused his powers and mekkaboi was out of commission for a while, but he is kinda king of all gnomes now.

Take a look again to those who participated on the attack, 3 alliance leaders in total.

and yes, the alliance victories were phirric, specially the two big battles lordaeron and dazarlazor, but they also seem to be recovering arathi, darkshore, and maybe soon gilneas with lordaeron destroyed.

The horde started the war with some goals in mind, end the war before it started, since that failed, the goal was to break the nelfs, that again failed because the nelfs returned to darkshore, well then the horde tried to kill alliance leadership, and that failed again.

Alright, then the horde tries to use derek as a key for victory in the war, and that also failed because he was returned safely.

The horde also failed in their goal to exterminate all life and driving out the nelfs out of kalimdor.
but we could also agree that this actually is an armistice and the factions are a period of negotiations. if baine in stormwind says something.

3 Likes

Apparently from datamining it isn’t any more:

    Anduin: Sylvanas is out there somewhere. Until she’s brought to justice, I don’t think Tyrande or Genn will truly consider the war to be over.
    Jaina: The Kul Tiran fleet is scouring the seas, and Shaw has spies searching every dark corner of Azeroth.

To say the Alliance is on the brink of collapse is more than dishonest, especially when you are intentionally overlooking what it means that the Night Elves won Darkshore in canon: That means the Night Elves with the support of the Gilneans forming the Army of the Black Moon was enough to win Darkshore back as I have speculated all along. And the Army of the Black Moon wasn’t present at Theramore or Orgrimmar when Anduin made his statements about what forces he, not the Alliance as a whole, had available. It is also factorable that the Night Elf army sent down to Silithus and returned was intended to be able to counter Saurfang’s entire Horde army if it had reached Silithus, and said Night Elf army was left intact even after the War of the Thorns.

3 Likes

The preparations are already made. Those people who occupy those positions are already there. They don’t leave that spot, that position is never vacant. It’s like that by design. They also don’t need to meet the odds of the attacking force. The attacking force has to have the overwhelming odds to participate in a siege, because most of those men aren’t coming home.

You might’ve heard this one, because they drop this line in GOT; “One man in the castle is worth 100 on the field.”. It’s not hyperbole, it’s the truth. It’s also why so few places actually got sieged in the Middle Ages. Most preferred to starve their enemy out, rather than go into something that is most assuredly a meat grinder.

You are correct, in that attempts on leadership failed, but the overall way in which war is waged in the middle ages- exhaust manpower, resource, wealth- was still largely successful, albeit at staggering cost.

If I were ever to choose a point in which an enemy army breaks, it’s when their mobile forces can’t muster beyond the bare minimum and cannot replenish losses without uprooting garrisons and giving up territory.

That the armistice is on and that the war is coming to a stop is just fine, but for anyone to say the Horde lost against an enemy that doesn’t have the steam to continue the fight is a little whacko-jacko. I’d even dare to say defeatist.

I’ve only Anduin’s words to work with, here. There’s no solid numbers to actually work with. However, if out of the entire Alliance, all forces mustered, conscripts included, he can field enough men for one assault, win or lose, with separatist help, that is the point of total exhaustion.

The Night Elves were also present for Orgrimmar, you can find them forming ranks.

i am not saying that the alliance didn’t lost soldiers or forces in the war.
i am simply saying that the horde failed most if not all their goals during the war.

Like, even their biggest victory, at tedrassil was supposed to divide the alliance and force nelfs leave kalimdor and while that worked for a while, the alliance retaliated, precisely the opposite to what they pretended.
and now you got a super angry avatar of a godness ready to start nuking places.

while we could not capture lordaeron, the seat of power of the forsakens is gone, gilneas ready to be recovered and stromgrade already back, with darkshore.
in the naval war apparently the kultiran fleet got the upper hand. while kinda depleted, still active hunting sylvanas.
while the zandalari went full MIA after BoD.

2 Likes

Because the concept of depletion is nonexistent in WoW. There will always be however many are needed for whatever Blizzard wants to write. Once again, see Kul’Tiras fleet.

None of those Night Elves were using the Night Warrior appearance that the Army of the Black Moon uses:

3 Likes

The Kul Tiran Fleet is still there but the Alliance Navy has still lost the 7th Fleet trying to recapture Zul and Talanji and also lost the Fleet that was assigned to the 7th Legion(probably none other than the Stormwind Fleet itself considering it was Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth’s own personal Fleet).

At the moment the Alliance still has 3 Fleets(including the fabled Kul Tiran Fleet) while the Horde has none.

Its hard to say. Zandalari still wouldn’t forgive the Alliance after the siege but I doubt they will ever go to open war on the Alliance since they pretty much left the shores of Zandalar unless if Zandalari goes full on invasion with the Troll Tribes of all against everyone within the Alliance.

Wait, I don’t think this one was a stated goal. Horde attacks on Night Elves were restricted solely to Darkshore/Teldrassil, not the continent as a whole. Also, exterminating all life on Azeroth was Sylvanas’ end goal, not the stated goal of the Horde forces during the war.

In either case, yeah. Yeah, Horde failed in pretty much all its other military goals. And the Alliance’s goal was pretty much to survive/cease hostilities and retake its lost territories, which it did.

3 Likes

isn’t a warchief supposed to be the horde?
The horde is their warchief and viceversa.

The horde is also the tools of said warchief, preetty sure that is the exact definition of the position.
Sylvanas goal is the same as the horde, that is why i see them as monsters. all of them.

2 Likes

Don’t the trolls hate the kaldorei?

It wouldn’t really make sense because neither were the zandalari trolls involved in the genocide of the Night Elves (at all) nor did the Night Elves really do anything in Dazar’alor.

2 Likes