This war was an unmitigated success for the Horde.

[raz98]

Seriously. Is nobody else bothered by the inconsistency of army strengths?
How did the Alliance go from winning the war, horde outnumbered
To
Combined alliance and rebel forces dwarfed by Sylvanas' big dick massive army.
Like how does that fucking compute?
Why is nobody else bothered by this?

[Khaza-R]

After signing the armistice, the Horde didn't cede any territory, paid no reparations, didn't even say sorry lol. If anything they came out ahead. Sylvannas' army that she left behind was bigger than the combined forces of the Horde rebels and Anduin's army as stated by Alleria. That army is now merged with the rebels, while the Humans are forced to conscript farmers, as their soldiers have suffered mass casualties. The Horde gained two new big kingdoms Zandalar and Suramar, while the alliance only gained one, Kul'Tiras.

The Horde is now the undisputed power in Kalimdor, while having 2 mega cities in the middle of the continents (Suramar city and Dazar'alor) to the Alliance's 1 (Kul'Tiras), heck Broken isles might as well be considered Horde dominated territory since they not only have Surmamar, but Thunder Totem as well, while the Alliance has no mega hub on that mini continent. The Horde still retains a full fledged kingdom in the EK with direct access to the ocean. Horde's civilian population is largely unharmed, while the Alliance lost nearly their entire Night Elf civilian population who are now reduced to refugees.

Horde is in a much better place than the Alliance, which now has divided leadership and growing fissures in terms of their direction. This war was an unmitigated disaster for the Alliance, while the Horde, all things being equal, did very well.

How exactly do we know they weren't required to cede any territory? Is there a map or something?

If peace is actually something the Horde has agreed too, then I can't imagine a single one of them will ever be allowed to set foot in Ashevenale or anywhere in Northern Kalimdor ever again.

[Foolicious]

Sylvannas' army that she left behind was bigger than the combined forces of the Horde rebels and Anduin's army as stated by Alleria

I think the main point of allerias statement was that sylvanas commands the forsaken which are more resistant to old gods and therefore better suited to fight n'zoth.
Or did i get it wrong? She never outright states "she has twice as much soldiers" or anything of that sort.

[Jastall]

Troop strength and the balance of power have been incredibly inconsistent all xpack long. At first the Alliance is stronger than the Horde, but we still plowed through the Night Elves in a day because scouts are for the weak or something. Then the Alliance is down to conscripting farmers, per a cinematic. Then BoD happens and the Horde leaders are panicking, weeks away from defeat. Then 8.2, and afterwards Sylvanas somehow has more forces than both the Horde rebels and the Alliance combined despite gameplay showing her only having the loyalty of Forsaken, Mag'har and some Goblins.

The Horde being stronger makes absolutely no sense at all. The Alliance just letting us off the hook a second time in five years makes no sense at all. This entire story is contrived bullshit.

[ReVnX]

which they lost the key to after it dodged sargeras' pinky, cuz it was no where to be seen while the horde used demolishers to bomb a city that is a FLIGHT POINT away
.

Velen took it for a retirement spaceship cruise after beating the Legion

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

It doesn't really matter. It never mattered that the Alliance was the 'only superpower' post MOP and if the factions start coming to blows again in the near future it won't matter. All that will matter is whatever blizzard feels like doing at that point in time, population replenishment and logic be damned.

Agreed, which is, again, why the "Alliance fist-bump moment" never was... its all fluff.

[withpuppys]

Isn't that convenient. The cowardly Horde can hide behind "The Human Potential" to not pay for their warcrimes!
And the Butcher of Ashenvale even gets rewarded with a death of his chosing - and being paid respect to by Alliance leaders at his funeral.

The citizens of Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil did not have this luxury - and when have Alliance leaders paid respects to the victims of the Burning of Teldrassil and the War of Thorns? Never.

to be fair when has blizzard ever cared about anyone who wasn't stormwind, gilneans have been without their home for 9 years and just recently lost a second home. and night elves have been taken blizzard writer's abuse for years

[horbindr]

sure horde is stronger now, but they don't have an opportunity to leverage that advantage if they wanted to.

or well, i guess they could take an alliance city right now, but that's a pretty suicidal risk to take knowing n'zoth just woke up.

and by the time the n'zoth threat is over, there will have been enough opportunities to balance the numbers again.

[Nathreim]

Wtf happend thou.

Alliance was winning by a landslide. KIlling the king in dazar alor nd stuff. hordes eladers gathered and paniking, saying they have no troops.

Then out of fucking nowere hordes suddenly have troops and mop the floor with the collective might of the alliance and burns teldrasil.

And now all of a sudden the horde has a bigass army and the alliance has fuckall for soldiers?!

Is that an accurate summary of what have happned sofar?

What? Did someone build a timemachine and changed the timeline?

The Horde was never running out of troops. Thats what Genn said about the Alliance before the attack on the Zandalari.

The reason why the Horde started to win is because Sylvanas dropped the entire Alliance fleet into the sea. Without that fleet the Alliance could no longer push the Horde as they had been doing after Rastakhan died.

[Soon-TM]

Sylvanas dropped the entire Alliance fleet into the sea. Without that fleet the Alliance could no longer push the Horde as they had been doing after Rastakhan died.

This is a fair point, and it makes me dislike the overall story even more. The whole premise of BfA was the faction war, with a purported strong naval theme - that's the entire reason we've been to Zandalar/KT in the first place.

But then it comes that both fleets see practically no use at all. Most of the Zandalari fleet is sabotaged before it can even sail (apparently, qualified maintenance personnel is quite hard to come by in a major naval power such as Zandalar), and the KT fleet is decimated in one of those Deus ex Machina moments that BfA seems to be so prodigal at. None of these outcomes make any sense.

Then you have the faction war itself, which we spent the first half of the xpac with. It reaches a climax in 8.1, then it's pretty much forgotten during 8.2, and now it comes to an abrupt end in 8.2.5 because Sylvie's makeup was a bit ruined during the Mak'gora, so she said some mean things to her own followers because reasons, and had to gtfo (because this is totally NOT Garrosh 2.0, trust us bois! - Ion).

Therefore, you realise that the two main stories of BfA's first half were completely pointless, because now Horde (or rather its remainders) and Alliance have to team up YET AGAIN to defeat Tentacle Boi.

[allawyn]

Yeah, the Horde that has no leadership, down the racial level on three of its core races. And who is apparently expected to take order from Anduin (in the name of "unity") Territory gains? Who is holding any territory against the Night Elves if all the forces are to Orgimmary.

It is clear that Anduin and the Alliance are in charge. Some victory. In reality, the Horde doesn't really even exist anymore, just a bunch of people without leaders standing around waiting for Anduin to tell them what to do.

[Grazrug]

Repeat after me OP faceless npc armies cloning or questing zones don't mean anything in a plot driven by characters with demigod powers which we need to defeat the biggest and baddest guys out there. Because of this anime writing style the horde narrative ceases to exist the minute 8.2.5 launched.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, the Horde that has no leadership, down the racial level on three of its core races. And who is apparently expected to take order from Anduin (in the name of "unity") Territory gains? Who is holding any territory against the Night Elves if all the forces are to Orgimmary.

It is clear that Anduin and the Alliance are in charge. Some victory. In reality, the Horde doesn't really even exist anymore, just a bunch of people without leaders standing around waiting for Anduin to tell them what to do.

This. All of it. The horde is not in charge of itself. It is driven by human morality and Anduin's good grace.

[Schattenlied]

. Sylvannas' army that she left behind was bigger than the combined forces of the Horde rebels and Anduin's army as stated by Alleria.

Which is ridiculous because we were told not long before that the Horde was losing disastrously on all fronts.

[Grazrug]

sure horde is stronger now, but they don't have an opportunity to leverage that advantage if they wanted to.

or well, i guess they could take an alliance city right now, but that's a pretty suicidal risk to take knowing n'zoth just woke up.

and by the time the n'zoth threat is over, there will have been enough opportunities to balance the numbers again.

What gives you that impression. Forsaken were our last power house to arm wrestle against stormwind. Dark rangers, Sylvanas and Nathanos, maybe even the RAS left. The forsaken are defanged. So from a military perspective the horde is totally irrelevant now.

[Mehrunes]

"I want interesting writing, but only if the Alliance never struggles and never does bad!!!!"...

Who exactly has said that in this thread?

Which is ridiculous because we were told not long before that the Horde was losing disastrously on all fronts.

Not disastrously. And in the very same patch Alliance had to resort to conscripting peasants. So kinda obvious they lost their momentum. Especially after they refused to push an advantage because Trolls would be sad if they did.

[Soon-TM]

Who exactly has said that in this thread?




Not disastrously. And in the very same patch Alliance had to resort to conscripting peasants. So kinda obvious they lost their momentum. Especially after they refused to push an advantage because Trolls would be sad if they did.

In defense of the hamsters lady, there are several Ally players who complain (and rightfully so) about their faction being purely reactive in nature, but if they are offered to take the initiative they won't do anything unless it's 100% guaranteed results and no questionable methods are used - and if they are used nonetheless, they must have some excuse at hand, flimsy as it can be.

In other words, they want to be proactive but put so many preconditions that they couldn't ever, ever take the initiative. The Ally Panda lady in the levelling zone is an excellent example. She would have rather left the big turtle to bleed dry, instead of actually doing something. But she chooses to throw a tantrum and a moralising speech... Oh well.

[Powerogue]

I wouldn't say pissing off your closest enemies from "defending their own territory" to "absolutely unleashed murder-crazy against you" was a win, but thankfully shifting the blame to Sylvanas is working for the moment.

In other words, they want to be proactive but put so many preconditions that they couldn't ever, ever take the initiative. The Ally Panda lady in the levelling zone is an excellent example. She would have rather left the big turtle to bleed dry, instead of actually doing something. But she chooses to throw a tantrum and a moralising speech... Oh well.

The point of it was that the means of fixing the wound was rash and reactive. It nearly killed the turtle! It worked, but deliberating on a safer way than blowing a hole in the side of the turtle with explosives could have also worked.

[korijenkins]

And thats why alliance players get frustrated.
If developers keep going with this you wont see any alliance in top100 / warmode etc. anymore.

Don ´t get me wrong, all my chars are horde and i love it - but horde just cant loose ingame, it allways wins.

*"But camp taurajooooooo!" arguments incoming*

I mean the Horde are just humiliated in their stories, but they never really lose anything. Generally the Alliance is too kind and forgiving. Generally the Horde have really poorly written characters. We've literally had the Horde be used twice now for a villain's gain.

[Thorqin]

The Horde was never running out of troops. Thats what Genn said about the Alliance before the attack on the Zandalari.

The reason why the Horde started to win is because Sylvanas dropped the entire Alliance fleet into the sea. Without that fleet the Alliance could no longer push the Horde as they had been doing after Rastakhan died.

Yup, Alliance's navy was completely decimated as a result, their armies reduced to conscripting farmers. The Alliance military was literally reduced to a small group that could barely mount a single offensive even with the help of the Horde rebels, and even then they were outnumber by one faction of the Horde.

Alliance took such a massive L in the expansion it's not even funny. Their armies and navies devastated, their only Kalimdor stronghold burnt to ash, pretty much their entire Night Elven population killed. And now they have a tremendous divide in their races, and a leadership schism.

Depleted and divided, dark times are ahead.

[Budong]

This is what happens when you try to have two factions fight a war without either one being able to win. You'll always be tied down from a narrative viewpoint because those two factions are played by your customers. Many of us warned you this would happen.