Having played through that on both sides, I’m still confused. Once Rastakhan was dead, what happened that necessitated their immediate retreat? What did they actually accomplish at all with that attack? Yes, they drove the Zandalari further into the arms of the Horde, but what did they want to do?
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The Alliance wanted Rastakhan to surrender and thus the Zandalari no longer be able to aid the Horde in their war.
Rastakhan refusing to surrender negated that possibility. The Alliance probably didn’t have to kill Rastakhan at that point, but I doubt he would have just let the Alliance walk away at that point, either.
Their goal no longer being possible, safe extraction from the site was really the only thing left for them to do.
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They wanted to expend their forces in a random location besides Arathi so that they couldn’t lend aid to the forces on Kalimdor. They also wanted to strengthen the Horde to balance the status quo.
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That doesn’t make sense. Surely they’d have some sort of secondary goal? Otherwise the attack is just a waste.
I guess reducing Horde manpower is a thing, but I feel like manpower isn’t considered very often…
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They were also banking on Rastakhan’s death taking the proverbial wind out of the Zandalari’s sails, leaving them leaderless and unorganized.
They also didn’t count on Telanji stepping up.
It was a tactical victory for Alliance since they destroyed the Zandalari fleet, but they didn’t achieve any of their other goals. Waste of time? Ehhh…depends on who you ask, I guess.
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They undid the entire Horde warcampaign. It was a massive victory.
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Their secondary goal was already accomplished at the start of the raid, when they set off the bombs under the Zandalari’s fleet. That wasn’t all of the Zandalari’s ships, though, so instead of hunting down the remaining Zandalari boats, they went for Rastakhan instead.
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To then follow the Horde remnant fleets into an obvious trap, negating the entire victory.
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True, but it wasn’t really the same. Alliance undid the horde war campaign and got a big victory. Then they got destroyed in a trap undoing their victory. This wasnt a horde victory though. It was a Sylvanus victory over both the horde and alliance. The horde just lost to everyone. Faction pride!
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Obviously not everyone since there was still Horde left to form a rebellion.
Then a throw away line about uhhh Anduin having to scrape the bottom of the barrel for troops?
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Sylvanas plainly tells Azshara to kill everyone.
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Yet the Horde found itself in a superior position when Anduin had to recruit traitors to Sylvanases Horde to fight his war for him.
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You do realize Sylvanas’s Horde was poised against the Horde, yes? They only reunite after Sylvanas screws up in Mak’gora.
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Prior to the battle they lured the bulk of the Zandalari and Horde into Nazmir by tricking them that the invasion was coming from there. By the time the Alliance was fighting Rastakhan, those forces had uncovered the trick and were reinforcing the defenders of Dazar’alor.
Furthermore they didn’t want Rastakhan dead, they wanted him to surrender or capture him after the fact. However that failed with Rastakhan remaining defiant to the end. Thus with no way to complete their original plan and the Zandalari/Horde reinforcements coming closer, the Alliance high tailed it out of there to avoid capture.
They destroyed the naval forces at the docks (missing the small detachment that was sent to Nazmir) and killed Rastakhan, leaving the Zandalari reeling from the death of their king.
However those victories did become moot with Sylvanas delivering the navies of the Horde and Alliance to Queen Ashara and the Zandalari uniting Talanji.
They wanted to drive a wedge between the Zandalari and the Horde. Taking Rastakhan into their custody and holding him hostage could have forced the Zandalari to remain out of the conflict in order to spare his life.
Suffice to say that’s not what happened.
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Her Horde was a better one than what we ended up with.
We could hardly call it a Horde now, thanks to our talented writers.
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There was something potentially interesting to note about this, though. Ultimately, the Zandalari did not show up either to support or stand against Sylvanas when the Horde rebels and the Alliance showed up at Orgrimmar. In throwing away the Zandalari’s remaining ships, and probably showing Talanji exactly how much Sylvanas cared about the Zandalari, Sylvanas lost support that she could have easily had and maybe not had to answer Saurfang’s challenge and run away so quickly after Saurfang got under her skin, as calling the Horde “Nothing” probably wouldn’t really have mattered to Talanji when Jaina was still there standing against Sylvanas.
But, as it was, Sylvanas metaphorically called the Zandalari “Nothing” even before she did the Horde, and left the Zandalari’s forces stuck on their island as such.
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I always thought that was odd and I was disappointed that Shadows Rising didn’t touch upon it. Like when Talanji was calling the Horde Council to answer the Zandalari’s call for justice/revenge for the Battle of Dazar’alor, one of the council members could have called her out on wanting the Horde to assist her, while refusing to take part in the Sylvanas and Saurfang conflict.
In thinking about Overlord Geya’rah would have been the perfect role for it, since she’s about loyalty and is the type of character who would see it as either cowardice or disloyalty. Plus it would d give her a role in the novel, over just being implied to be present at the first meeting due to the implication that Voss was only missing council member.
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Because he cares more about the Horde than his people, and he felt bad for the Zandalari so he just retreated even though he sent his soldiers on a suicide mission just for that attack.
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Anduin wasn’t even there to call for a retreat, that was Jaina.
And then Anduin and Jaina refused to press the attack, on grounds of allowing the Zandalari to mourn Rastakhan and not wanting to be like Sylvanas. Which I don’t expect people to respond well to in light of the suicide squad for the mission.
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That’s what I been saying.
Anduin hurt the Zandalari just hard enough to make them hate the Alliance forever, but not hard enough to stop them from being a threat to the Alliance. He couldn’t have done it worse.
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