Where did the Iron Horde go wrong?

[Techno-Druid]

1. Should've gained control of all of Draenor
2. Promised the Gorians and arakkoa fair and equal membership in the Iron Horde after the conquest.
3. Not attack the draenei and encourage them to stay neutral in the conflict.
4. Overwhelm the Blasted Lands, but focus on sending Iron Horde forces to colonize areas of less value often overlooked by the Horde and Alliance to begin building up forces.

Or something like that, it honestly would've been cool to see the Iron Horde go further into Azeroth. Have one part of WoD about dismantling the Iron Horde settlements on Azeroth and the other part being Azerothian forces heading to Draenor.

[Asotcha]

I think his biggest problem was in not laying out a more serious strategy. As Lord Pebbleton pointed out above, after him seeing all the force we could muster against our enemies, he should have gone in with a different attitude. Sending a strike force up to Blackrock Mountain wasn't a terrible idea, because it could have gotten them recruits on the inside and started to set up some kind of flanking structure, but his first push into the Blasted Lands was really lackluster.

Their biggest advantage was surprise, and everyone still recovering their bearings after the shitstorm of the Seige. They should have found some way to avoid Netherwatch Keep, have Blackrock start attacking Ironforge to draw focus north for a few weeks and get everyone nice and distracted (perhaps even SW sending forces to back up the dwarves). Let supply lines get established and the natural antibodies of military sense take root.

Then send every single soldier, machine, and shoe-shine boy they had through Stranglethorn vale (its not like the Gurubashi trolls would have warned us), Duskwood (where things aren't watched closely because monsters) into Elwynn where everything would have been flattened pretty much immediately, and against SW when we were off balance, our already-diminished forces were mostly on hand to keep civil order and warriors were up north dicking around in Dun Morogh against a foe that didn't matter much after all. Double that effect if King Varian had have been out of town at the time from the chaos factor alone.

This would have given them a much better run at the Eastern Kingdoms at the very least.

[Aeula]

Azeroth's champions had grown too strong. Nothing can pose a threat to them and the lesser the threat, the quicker they're destroyed.

[McNeil]

The entire Iron Horde came over as being completely incompetent. They were foolish enough to believe a random stranger that they had to invade Azeroth, a planet where they have no idea how strong the enemies are. They didn't conquer all of Draenor where the Thunderlord Clan were still fighting the Frostwolves, the Shadowmoon Clan still fighting the draenei, the Shattered Hand still fighting the arrakoa, basically a lot of things left to do. They only spawned lesser grunts out of the portal where they got blocked by an elite team of Azeroths defenders, eventually they gathers enough heroes and then pulls them all the way back to Tanaan.

I don't know how they wanted to write the Iron Horde but to me they are just a bunc of clowns. Then again WoD didn't happen........

[TickTickTick]

We shouldnt be able to defend the portal tbh. There shouldnt be time to bring main forces when iron horde attacked - they should be in full force just waiting until the connection between worlds is completed.

But gameplay, eh... A group of heroes comes in and instantly wins the day. We then craft our little garrisons then are sent to Ashran which is full blown, full built city (?!) by i dont even know whom (?!).

Yep. WoD lacked any logic. Iron horde failing at the first 30 minutes of expansion wasnt even the biggest fail.

[Combatbutler]

Choosing Garrosh as the representative, everything went downhill from there.

[Kralljin]

I think the original plan for WoD, that we invade AU Draenor via some Bronze Dragons before they managed to build the Dark Portal would've made them look less incompetent, then it also would've made sense why Frostwolves / Draenei aren't defeated yet.

[Severance]

What should the Iron Horde have done differently in order to succeed?

They needed a dev team who didn't abandon the expansion shortly after release only to come back much later and use them as a cheap plot device just to justify the next expansion pack they wanted to sell.

[Paula Deen]

Do you want a lore answer? The lore answer is because they got pushed back hard after they left the Blasted Lands. Scouts made it past and into Blackrock only because of Zaela.

Do you want a nonlore reason? A few? Nonlore 1, they butchered Kosak's designs. Nonlore 2, they are a bad guy and them winning would just make casuals mad. Nonlore 3? The whole expansion was a rushed mess meant to tie into the Warcraft Movie so you get the idea of wtf happened to the whole thing after they realized it was going to be hella delayed and 17 cent.

[JustRob]

We shouldnt be able to defend the portal tbh. There shouldnt be time to bring main forces when iron horde attacked - they should be in full force just waiting until the connection between worlds is completed.

But gameplay, eh... A group of heroes comes in and instantly wins the day. We then craft our little garrisons then are sent to Ashran which is full blown, full built city (?!) by i dont even know whom (?!).

Yep. WoD lacked any logic. Iron horde failing at the first 30 minutes of expansion wasnt even the biggest fail.

That's the whole point of Nethergarde Keep. To keep watch over the Dark Portal in case it ever opens again. As soon as Nethergarde saw orcs coming out of the portal, the faction leaders were notified in moments and before you knew it Khadgar and his league of heroes were standing in front of the portal. Garrosh knew about the Blasted Lands, and he knew that nobody gives a fuck about that zone, its singular purpose is to warn of an incoming invasion.

[nyc81991]

I think the actual reason is simply because Blizzard abandoned WoD and the Iron Horde almost instantly after committing to it. Draenor and the Iron Horde could have been a lot more awesome than what we ended up getting in the end.

[Sanguinerd]

Their problem was arrogance. They didn't take us seriously and they lost because of it.

It's should've been more like this(I think);

The in-game cinematic should've been something like Thrall and Maraad going through that portal and the camera stops, suddenly something flies through and it's Thralls head. The warlords step through the portal holding a bloodied Maraad. They say some badass lines and more orcs come through and we get overrun, the forces of the Alliance & Horde get pushed back and we have to escape back to Karazhan or something where Khadgar made some barriers or whatever.

Then we get quests to re-take the swamp and push through to the blasted lands and go through the portal to rescue Maraad and whatever other captives they took, while we're there we learn that because the portal is powered by Gul'dan & pals it can't stay open forever, we use this intel to go to Draenor and sacrifice ourselves by destroying the portal and being trapped. We then with the help of the Frost Wolves/Draenei escape the Iron Horde because they didn't properly conquer Draenor to begin with and we start making allies and establish a garrison etc.

I don't even remember why we went to the blasted lands to help anymore, Khadgar gave us some quest..? or something and we just showed up.

[TheFirstOnes]

When they became an Expansion threat.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

It occurred during warlords of dreanor.

[Thage]

For starters, the Iron Horde decided to wage war on two fronts, which is rather taxing. They hadn't even conquered Draenor before attempting to conquer Azeroth. That's just bad.

Three or four, technically. They were working on dealing with the Frostwolves and draenei (who didn't ally until the Alliance and Horde swung by and struck up an uneasy coalition under Khadgar and the player character), then they were dealing with a small but growing Legion presence, and then they rushed into Azeroth.

On top of that, either Garrosh downplayed the might of the Alliance and Horde, or he got cocky and convinced Grom it would be an easy fight with the orcs at their height united and taking them by surprise. Either way, their momentum was halted because the Alliance and Horde were able to quickly mount a response, and while the Iron Horde was still prepping for the main invasion force (they were counting on Zaela to take out Stormwind and possibly Ironforge with their work at Blackrock Mountain, but that was stopped while the Alliance and Horde broke the initial invasion force's momentum), a suicide squad pushed through the portal and cut off the Iron Horde's main entry point.

From there, it's a case study in one tactical blunder after another, showing why Grom was never given leadership of the Horde (literally the only reason Garrosh pushed for his father to take the reins instead of the more ruthlessly-efficient Blackhand or the tactically-brilliant Doomhammer is because he has daddy issues the size of Orgrimmar). The Iron Horde was fighting a three-front war and refused to commit more than one or two clans to each front and focus their efforts, while the Alliance and Horde forces were able to coordinate with the draenei and Frostwolves to make huge pushes into Iron Horde territory. Garrosh did little but sit on his throne in Nagrand until we showed up with Thrall, at which point he once again proceeded to have his ass handed to him militarily, then in personal combat, culminating in Thrall cheating in a mak'gora to kill him. Then the Warlords stopped listening to Grom, the Iron Horde began fracturing. Blackhand fell back to his Foundry and was killed. Kargath joined the Highmaul ogres out of pride so he could fight us in the arena, and was killed. Kilrogg took Gul'dan up on his offer and guzzled demon blood like an ice-cold beer. Grom had neither the charisma, tactical knowhow, nor personal connections to keep the Iron Horde together through loss after loss, a trait shared by his son. The only difference is Garrosh doubled down on it and Grom decided to throw his lot in with the guys who've been kicking his ass up and down two different planets.

[JustRob]

I think the whole Gul'dan thing was a grave mistake on the Iron Horde's part as well. He was immensely powerful, even before HFC. They should have never left a possibility open where he lives and escapes.

[A dot Ham]

Iron horde failing at the first 30 minutes of expansion wasnt even the biggest fail.

That took you 30 min to complete? LULZ baddy alert.

Just kidding!

[Dreknar20]

How could such a huge, organized army have been foiled so easily by a handful of people?

God like beings called, writers, force the protagonists to win no matter the odds.

In fact they also intentionally force the antagonists to be better armed, numbered, more badass and threatning to make the protagonists winning more heroic.

[Villager720]

I think the whole Gul'dan thing was a grave mistake on the Iron Horde's part as well. He was immensely powerful, even before HFC. They should have never left a possibility open where he lives and escapes.

They needed him to power the portal.

[JustRob]

They needed him to power the portal.

I want to say bullshit, as the original Dark Portal didn't need anything like that, but I realize it was written specifically this way so the Dark Portal could be easily disabled...