“My queen, reports are coming in from all outposts. The Alliance is tightening its grip. Victory is within their grasp.”
Hmm? Not sure I am following you here honestly.
To put it simply, all I am saying is the notion that the Horde currently has numerical/military superiority over the Alliance is wrong and that the things people are using as evidence for that claim don’t really hold up.
The way I view the situation, taking everything into account, is that neither side has much of an advantage and that both sides have agreed on the fruitlessness of the war, thus the armistice.
They actually transform into K’thir during the quest. And were using void attacks such as Abyssal Bolt even before they transformed, and were raving about the Old God:
Tidesage Seacaller says: Ah… I hear the voice! The thousand truths!
Tidesage Seacaller says: I am blind no longer.
Tidesage Seacaller says: I drink in the infinite void.
Tidesage Seacaller says: I hear the voice! The thousand truths!
Tidesage Seacaller says: I will live eternal in the abyss.
Tidesage Seacaller says: My soul for the ancient one!
Tidesage Seacaller says: Oh… The writhing shadow comes for me!
Tidesage Seacaller says: The circle… I see the circle!
Tidesage Seacaller says: The drowned dream consumes me!
Tidesage Seacaller says: The tendrils of fate shall claim you!
Tidesage Seacaller says: The writhing shadow comes for me!
Tidesage Seacaller says: Yes… The circle… I see the circle!
It is implied at best, as you are right that it is never actually shown:
Neferset have been spotted wandering the streets of their city to the south. This would normally be no cause for alarm, except the Neferset were completely wiped out. I must ask you to investigate further… and if by some foul magic these reports turn out to be true, you must do whatever you can to contain this threat!
I cannot believe what I am hearing…
This is truly much worse than I feared.
The implication from the copses and the Voidwarped is that they were reanimated by the void, despite the humanoid tag.
If Saurfang hadn’t gotten her there she wouldn’t even have had the opportunity to say the couple of words she did.
While you are pointing out the state of things from Lordaeron to Nazjatar these are not the same situations as when the Horde rebels came to face Sylvanas at Orgrimmar, as while we see the Horde rebel and Alliance forces outside of Orgrimmar, the Sylvanas loyalist player does not see an equivalent or greater inside of Orgrimmar, and in actuality sees that there is much unrest and people opposed to Sylvanas inside the city still, which the honor Horde and Alliance players did not get to see.
What did the Horde get out of its player’s War Campaign?
Marshal M. Valentine? Sacrificed by Nathanos.
Thomas Zelling? Executed in front of all of the Horde’s leaders.
Abyssal Scepter? Stolen back by the Alliance, used against the Horde, then destroyed by Talanji.
The Zandalari fleet? Blown up by the Alliance.
Derek Proudmoore? Saved by Baine.
Priscilla Ashvane? Immediately betrayed them.
As for Darkshore itself, most things indicate that the Night Elf victory happened after the first round of the Alliance version of the warfront proper itself. Nathanos is no longer at Darkshore (having headed back to Zandalar before the Battle of Dazar’alor, and then we see him for Nazjatar before he goes back to Orgrimmar, and he doesn’t show up in the Alliance version of the Darkshore Warfront, either). The Horde’s version of the warfront is set right after the Alliance intro questing since the Horde has to save Belmont, and since that’s always the case and generals don’t change like at Arathi it would seem this is a gameplay mechanic like repeating dungeons rather than battlegrounds (Belmont also doesn’t show up in the Alliance version of the Darkshore Warfront, so it’s not like the Alliance players recapture him every time, either).
And even outside the Darkshore Warfront we have support that the Alliance won:
But there is something earlier you pointed out that I would like to note as well:
Sylvanas winning at causing as much death as possible is not winning for the Horde, nor is it any indication of the Horde’s strength. Quite the opposite, the more Sylvanas was winning, the weaker the Horde was getting as well, as she killed them off right alongside the Alliance.
This is actually a great observation, especially if we are going by the whole “you can’t trust what characters say, only what you see” line of thinking that some people were advocating awhile back.
This was right after the Alliance took out the Zandalari fleets and before Azshara/Sylvanas took out the Alliance fleets. So yeah, the Horde was definitely in a bad way at the time.
I’m saying that Sylvanas’ forces were powerful enough that in order to take her down, the Alliance forces and rebel elements of the Horde teamed up to do it, and were framed as the underdogs. They’re dismayed at her numbers. They emphasize again and again the critical importance of this assault. One of them voices concerns that she may have the only army powerful enough to fight the bigger fight to come. In the end, one of the characters essentially chooses suicide as part of a bid to avoid the bloodshed that would result from an actual confrontation.
But Sylvanas’s forces were actually the one at the disadvantage. Even if they’d reunited with the Horde rebels.
In the macro, no, the Horde and Alliance in their entirety don’t have a big advantage over one another. But at the time of the Battle of Orgrimmar, we weren’t looking at the entirety of the Horde and Alliance forces on the battlefield.
Which is the context in which this whole issue got brought up. People are saying the Horde currently has a numerical superiority based on the Battle of Orgrimmar. I am saying they don’t, based on everything else.
As I said, they lose their connections to death/sea in favor of more void abilities as they make the actual transition.
Or rather that the followers of N’zoth, of which there are many in the quest corrupted Neverset and together, they wiped out the rest.
As good as a commander as Saurfang is supposed to be, there’s nothing suggesting that a successful of invasion into Kalimdor was only possible because of him. That Sylvanas would have never gotten to Northshore far without Saurfang.
We both know that you can’t actually count actual in game models as being indicative. We’ll never actually see how many actual troops or actual ships are involved in a battle with actual numbers due to the limitations of the game engine and animation.
WoW communicates relative numbers, strength, and the overall situation through character dialogue.
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The Army of the Black Moon did indeed beat the Horde in Northern Kalimdor.
But they aren’t acting in concert with the Alliance forces, and definitely not the Alliance forces that were all standing outside of Orgrimmar’s gates.
When I speak in the macro, I’m assuming the Army of the Black Moon decide to team back up with the Alliance. But that doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment- or at least wasn’t in the case of the Battle of Orgrimmar.
So yeah, I can see pointing to that instance as the Horde having the advantage. Especially considering that Sylvanas’ forces and rebel forces unite there at the gates of Orgrimmar, while the overall Alliance remained divided between Anduin’s forces who were present, and the Army of the Black Moon, which is doing its own thing in northern Kalimdor.
I think that if they wanted to, the forces Sylvanas had just abandonned, combined with Saurfang’s forces could have put the hurt on the Alliance forces right there. Which pretty much would have left the newly unified Horde having to deal with the Army of the Black Moon.
Maybe, we will never know because it is all speculation. It’s possible the Alliance could have put the hurt on the Horde as well if after Saurfangs death and the gates opened they pulled a surprise attack on the Horde. It’s very easy to speculate in something this fictitious and vague.
The point is the massive advantage people are claiming the Horde had is being overblown from one or two comments in the game, of which we don’t know the exact reasoning for, as I explained multiple times those comments can be read multiple ways.
Sylvanas advantage in that moment can come from the fact she is in an entrenched position, and Anduin already knows what she is willing to do from his experience at Undercity. Sylvanas goals are also different than Anduins, as she merely wants the most death possible for both sides. There’s also again the fact that if they lose that battle N’zoth will arrive shortly opening a two front war. When Alleria speaks of Sylvanas capabilities to beat N’zoth, she never mentions numbers.
We don’t know. All we know is the battle was thought to be a very decisive one for Anduin/Saurfang and that Alleria thought Sylvanas forces were the only ones capable of beating N’zoth. The numbers, the hows, the whys, never mentioned. Therefor it’s a matter of head canon speculating to derive from it that the Horde has came away with numerical superiority. It’s not definitive.
I mean she tasks him with coming up with the plan for the War of Thorns. Isn’t it also Saurfang who discovers the flank through Felwood? We also know the horde began to lose when he wasn’t commanding them, as shown from Nathanos quote. Saurfang was overall pretty important to the Hordes successes in that first act of the war. Sylvanas internal thoughts from A Good War also suggest she believes it will be a big problem if she turns him into an enemy.
Sylvanas herself described it as needing Saurfang to do the planning in A Good War, which weirdly enough was probably part of her very manipulation to get him to do so.
Character dialogue is not very consistent, either, as after the Nazjatar trap Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth says that the entire fleet was lost, but after N’Zoth’s defeat Jaina says the fleet is out searching for Sylvanas, in either they magically recovered or the losses were not that absolute.
That is the core of my point as well, that the forces that were around when Alleria and Anduin made their comments were not actually all of the Alliance’s forces.
I take into consideration that the Night Elf army that was headed down to Silithus was meant to match Saurfang’s entire army, which included the Orcs, Tauren, Goblins, Trolls, Forsaken, and Blood Elves. Saurfang was not hiding the numbers in his army, he was merely hiding his feint, as he was broadcasting his numbers to Shaw’s spies so the Night Elves would send their army that would match theirs down to Silithus.
Saurfang also was analyzing things in A Good War under the premise that neither side had a navy that could move troops around because of the Legion. Anduin’s forces were never a factor Saurfang had to worry about. He only had to worry about the Night Elves’ forces returning before the Horde got to Teldrassil. And when part of the Night Elves’ forces did make it back the Horde almost lost, Saurfang stating that the Horde would need a miracle to win now, but luckily got one in the pass through Felwood.
But it wasn’t even the full Night Elf military that returned in the War of the Thorns. Only the boats that Malfurion’s messenger could reach to tell them to turn back. All the forces that had already been in Feralas did not get involved in the War of the Thorns. And it did not seem that Feralas got attacked at all throughout the Fourth War.
I’d be inclined to agree that the Alliance could have put the hurt on the Horde, had it decided to attack after the Horde decided to lay down arms and open the city to them. Afterall, getting into the city was their military goal.
But yes, of course it’s all speculation. Eve the assertion that the Horde and Alliance is equally matched or that the Alliance/Horde Rebels were likely to win without Saurfang’s gambit, or even the claim that armies are useless against N’zoth, are based in speculation conjecture.
When something doesn’t just outright happen or is stated in the game, all we can do is look to in game dialogue, framing, creator commentary, and precedent to draw conclusions and debate them.
And some speculation can have more evidence supporting it than others.
Not just one or two comments. Several comments, the framing of the whole scene, and the fact that it’s really the simplest answer.
Well I guess it must depend on what advantages she thinks Sylvanas has. Does she think it’s because Sylvanas has the allegiance of more Forsaken than anyone short of the Lich King? Does she think it’s because Sylvanas’ forces have some secret weapon?
I only mention numbers because whatever advantage she did have, she had it before the Horde was reunited. When the Horde and Rebel Horde ended up joining one another, whatever advantage she may have had now benefits from an influx of additional soldiers in the form of the former rebels.
Anduin, Saurfang, and Lothemar all, at one point before the battle, comment on the smaller than hoped for nature of their forces.
Pretty important, I won’t argue. Although Sylvanas’ Horde did also manage to destroy the Alliance fleet and force the Alliance/Rebel Horde through a grinder to the point where they were forced into a last ditch assault against them to decide the fate of the conflict. All this happened after Nathano’s comments.
It helps to have actual quotes, as well as when they were made.
But the Army of the Black Moon had been operating independently of the Alliance army and snubbed the opportunity to join the Alliance forces up until then. How could they counted as part of the Alliance’s forces in any capacity?
So basically, the Night Elf army is enough to take one the entire Horde? The rest of the Alliance supplements them rather than vice versa?
What is the simplest answer? The Hordes numerical advantage? I don’t actually think so, for reasons I explained.
Right, which we aren’t actually told a lot about what that advantage is… just that she has one, in that moment.
Not really, because it was her advantage to begin with, not the Hordes. While the Horde gained the rebel forces, it also lost Sylvanas, Nathanos, a multitude of Banshees, and who knows what else that followed Sylvanas. Do you think those things were not strengths which are now lost?
Right, but this also cost the Horde itself in the form of losing the rest of their fleet as well. The dire situation in that moment also comes from the increasing realization of what Sylvanas is actually doing, that she doesn’t intend to actually win a normal war, but to merely kill as many on both sides as possible, for whatever her true ulterior motives are. So, with this unconventional goal of hers in mind, and with N’zoth on the horizon, it would make sense that our heroes believed they needed to dispose of her right then and there, and end the war, or else all would be lost.
So to sum up here, while the Horde has been reunited with the rebels, it also lost Sylvanas (and things that come with her, such as Nathanos and her Banshees), in the same way Tyrande and her Army of the Black Moon are not currently on the same page as the rest of the Alliance. The moment of advantage for both sides has clearly passed, and the Alliance and Horde have both entered an armistice out of exhaustion and increasing ideological agreement between the leaderships, minus Sylvanas who left the Horde and Tyrande who wont agree til Sylvanas is dead.
Numbers don’t really factor into until AFTER part of the forces attacking the Orgrimmar ended up actually joining it. Although Anduin, Saurfang, and Lothermar do comment on their relative lack of numbers and Sylvanas’ domination of the skies- which they apparently can’t challenge. And THEN Alleria brings up the concern that only the Horde forces being led by Sylvanas could stand stand up to N’zoth.
The point being that remained of the Horde was already still deemed formidable before it got an influx of troops in the form of the rebels.
Although yes, it had to give up Sylvanas/Nathanos and her small personal retinue of the most loyal of loyalist in the process…
Unless Sylvanas/Nathanos/Banshees alone were comparable to Saurfang’s rebel forces, then no. I don’t think the loss was as significant as what was gained. Afterall, the bulk of the Forsaken stayed within the Horde. Sylvanas later bemoans this fact.
So it’s really the case that they knew they already had an army capable of defeating N’zoth and Sylvanas’ Horde was just being something they needed to get out of the way before they dealt with the real problem.
Because the actual framing of the events was far more serious and dire than that. And makes all of the hand wringing over their numbers (or lack thereof), Alleria and Saurfang’s whole exchange about the cost/benefits of doing this, and much of any tension leading up to the conflict into much ado about nothing.
I think the Army of the Black Moon is more formidable than Sylvanas/Nathanos and her banshees to the point that the two aren’t comparable. Sylvanas needed the numbers of the Horde to wage an effective campaign on any front. You didn’t see her fighting off forces with just herself, with backup from Nathanos and her banshees.
The Army of the Blackmoon proved it didn’t need the rest of the Alliance to succeed on the Nothern Kalimdor front.
I think in some ways they do, perhaps not in numbers themselves, but in strength… which is again my point. her advantage was not necessarily basic numerical. Sylvanas was shown to be super powerful, slaying Saurfang with relative ease. There is a reason commanders/heroes are high value.
“Your sister will not fight for us, Alleria. When Sylvanas realized the war was on the cusp of ending, she lured both fleets into Azshara’s hands. Not to find victory but to meet death.”
and
“We can not wage two wars. Sylvanas must fall. Here. Now. Before all is lost.”
Anduins words suggest that, yes, the possibility of a two front war and the fact Sylvanas doesn’t even intend to “win”, but to kill, factor into the importance of defeating her then and there.
This is true, but it doesn’t mean she was not an incredibly strong asset to the Horde (had she been loyal to it, rather than her other motives) which is now lost to it.
I can’t believe it. Almost the entire fleet… lost!
Jaina after N’Zoth’s defeat:
Anduin Wrynn says: 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.
Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: The Kul Tiran fleet is scouring the seas, and Shaw has spies searching every dark corner of Azeroth.
Why would they have to be counted upon to be an actual factor? Jaina stormed off in Legion and was completely out of contact, but then randomly showed up at the Battle for Lordaeron.
Sometimes they are. All depends on whatever the story is that Blizzard wants to tell. As you yourself pointed out:
most nations have more than one fleet like if you told me the USA lost the entire fleet, I’d be like which one? Like I kind of doubt that Jes tereth as command of the fleet jainas brother commands
And as was pointed out earlier - the ‘combined’ alliance forces Anduin commanded arent all the military forces that are part of the Alliance. As mentioned you have the army of the Black Moon, but one thing not really counted on is Ironforge’s army.
Ironforge boasts a pretty formidable force I’d argue, even more so now that all 3 clans are now united. But like usual, the bulk of Ironforge’s forces were kept back defending Khaz’Modan and Arathi. The dwarves arent really known for sending out their full might unless they are in real dire straights. and if you notice, in that last final siege, Ironforge’s full military wasnt present, just a small token force of tanks and riflemen to compliment the human troops.
Ironforge’s military never really got involved in the war besides sending some small groups of soldiers to Arathi and Zandalar but you never really see them in full force. So there is probbaly an entire army made of legions of hale and healthy dwarven soldiers spread across Khaz’Modan
So when Alleria spoke of Sylvanas’ army, she was really referring to Sylvanas personally.
So Sylvanas’ and especially the troops she commanded were more of, at worst, a complication. Something to be dealt with before the real work of fighting N’zoth.
I think this is a major downplaying of the threat the Horde was supposed to represent up until then.
You said “Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth says that the entire fleet was lost” when what she really said was “Almost the entire fleet… lost!”
Yes, Jaina Stormed off in Legion and returned at the battle of Lordaeron. And before she returned in the battle of Lordaeron, she and whatever troops followed her weren’t a part of the Alliance’s forces.
The Army of the Black Moon has likewise been operating independently of the Alliance army and snubbed the opportunity to join the Alliance forces up until then. How could they counted as part of the Alliance’s forces in any capacity?
I’m comparing Sylvanas, Nathanos, and a handful of banshees to an the entire army of the Black Moon. In which case, no, they don’t hold up.
That’s why Sylvanas and crew need the Horde forces.
But apparently you feel that even when they aren’t divided between Sylvanas/Saurfang’s forces, the Horde doesn’t stand a chance against the army of the Black Moon. Or Anduin’s forces. Or the Night Elves in general.
She never actually says why she thinks she may command the only army capable of defeating N’zoth, ever. Our reasoning for why she said that is all speculation. Anduin immediately shoots down the idea anyways, because he has more or less already uncovered Sylvanas game - prolonged killing, not victory.
I mean, the arrival of N’zoth is emphasized as a reasoning for having to defeat Sylvanas there and then. I quoted it. That doesn’t mean Sylvanas is “merely a complication” it means, to me, she is to be seen as much as a problem as N’zoth. Anduin mind you emphasizes her too, not her forces.
You have yet to quote one thing mentioning the numerical superiority that multiple people have claimed the Horde has. It’s all inductive reasoning based on two comments.
1.) Allerias thought that Sylvanas commands the only army capable of beating N’zoth, which is immediately rejected by Anduin, and
2.) Anduins comments that they can only muster enough forces for one siege.
These are the only basis from which people are deriving the Hordes forces are more numerous, even though the context around these statements doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion at all.
I don’t, because up until Nazjatar the Alliance had victory within their grasp, stated by Nathanos himself. The threat was Sylvanas, and in fact still is. Thus her being the catalyst for the entire new expansion, not the Horde forces she commanded!