How did the alliance suddenly lose so many?

[Dakhath]

Logistics have never made sense in this game. Orgrimmar was founded by a couple boats worth of Orcs and despite being at constant war with world ending threats for over a decade, they can still field a large standing army.

[Talrath]

Anduin has the Night Elves that were assigned with the Alliance High Command. It's important to note that each racial leader can choose how many forces to make available to the Alliance Army and maintains the rest at home and that Anduin only has authority over the actions of the former forces. The Night Elves are an extremely militant people and always had expansive forces; the burning of Teldrassil primarily killed civilians and not all the Night Elf military at numerous locations across the world were there are Alliance interests. I am not sure that Tyrande pulled back significant forces anyhow; she specifically went to Darkshore by her self and the forces we found there were remnants of night elf resistance, powerful errant Night Elf heroes and Genn's personal forces.
Tyrande can certainly pull back forces from the Alliance Army. If she has established a new base in Nordrassil, she can perhaps even start moving civilians there; remember that Stormwind is filled with Night Elf civilian refugees.

This is the most logical answer. If i were in her position i would call back every night elf to darkshore/nordrassil.

[Ersula]

Right before Azshara, the Alliance were crushing it and were weeks from winning the war.

During the setup for Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, Anduin says it's their last troops.

Am I missing something? What happened?
Did the battle against Azshara dwindle all their numbers or what?

Sylvanas is a 900 year old Ranger-general & easily the most competent strategist in the game's universe. Meanwhile the Alliance's military is run by an alcoholic dogman & a child

[justandulas]

it's all but said that the alliance paid a higher blood price for Azshara and naz. While sylvanas used a small number to lure them into the trap, the trap was successful.

[therealbowser]

...what, precisely, was their "tech advantage?"

Azerite. The whole theme of the expansion.

[Feanoro]

it's all but said that the alliance paid a higher blood price for Azshara and naz. While sylvanas used a small number to lure them into the trap, the trap was successful.

Faithfully continuing the theme of "Alliance saves the world so the Horde can be the ones to destroy it".

[Terongor]

Right before Azshara, the Alliance were crushing it and were weeks from winning the war.

During the setup for Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, Anduin says it's their last troops.

Am I missing something? What happened?
Did the battle against Azshara dwindle all their numbers or what?

Well alliance sent nearly all of their forces to crush horde fleet when nazjatar happened as they though it was an easy victory.

[Al Gorefiend]

Maybe Alliance military tactics consist of trying to drown the Horde in Alliance soldier's blood or something.

It’s a perfect strategy. Create a blockade by stacking the dead bodies so high..

[Nyel]

Right before Azshara, the Alliance were crushing it and were weeks from winning the war.

During the setup for Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, Anduin says it's their last troops.

Am I missing something? What happened?
Did the battle against Azshara dwindle all their numbers or what?

They cut out the entire middle part of the faction war and directly jumped to the conclusion so no, you're not missing something, Blizzard just didn't care to properly write the story.

[Varodoc]

I still don't understand why some people claim that the Alliance "sent all their forces to chase the Horde to Nazjatar". Let me make a list of all the Alliance forces that did not take part in the attack of Nazjatar:

- Ironforge
- Gnomeregan
- Night elves (their fleet included)
- Exodar
- Gilneas
- Void elves
- Army of the Light (Vindicaar and Aurobos included)
- Shadowforge

There are literally only Stormwind and Kul Tiran ships at Nazjatar. No. The Alliance did not send all their forces to Nazjatar, not even the majority actually. And if we go by what is shown in the cinematic, the kul tiran ships at Nazjatar were but a fraction of the bigger kul tiran fleet shown at the end of the Siege of Boralus.

[Shiza]

"We don't win by killing those we hate, but by defending those we love"

As a leftist I also have to say that trivializing genocide, the pain and suffering of the survivors of a genocide and especially saying that a female leader who has to deal with her people having experienced a genocide and justifiably expects that the perpretrators of this genocide are put to justice is consumed by vengeance and therefore indicating that she is somehow irrational or insane is not really an example of non toxic male behavior.

It's kinda funny, Golden prides herself with writing Anduin as this non toxic male character and yet he is a total nice guy. You know, this kinds of guys who pride themselves for being such nice boys and yet are the worst of the crowd.

[Nathreim]

Right before Azshara, the Alliance were crushing it and were weeks from winning the war.

During the setup for Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, Anduin says it's their last troops.

Am I missing something? What happened?
Did the battle against Azshara dwindle all their numbers or what?

Before the attack on the Zandalari Genn said they were out of soldiers. Its in the cinematic Anduin went to see Saurfang in prison. They coordinated a world wide assault to coincide with the attack even though they were already losing at this point. The attack sorta worked the Horde was pushed back however it was extremely costly.

Sylvanas then used Azshara to destroy the entire combined Alliance fleet resulting in more losses. This combined with the losses already suffered erased any chance the Alliance had to win.

[Varodoc]

They coordinated a world wide assault to coincide with the attack even though they were already losing at this point.

Citation needed. Just because they were down to conscripting farmers doesn't mean that the Horde was in a better position.

[GreenJesus]

I still don't understand why some people claim that the Alliance "sent all their forces to chase the Horde to Nazjatar". Let me make a list of all the Alliance forces that did not take part in the attack of Nazjatar:

- Ironforge
- Gnomeregan
- Night elves (their fleet included)
- Exodar
- Gilneas
- Void elves
- Army of the Light (Vindicaar and Aurobos included)
- Shadowforge

There are literally only Stormwind and Kul Tiran ships at Nazjatar. No. The Alliance did not send all their forces to Nazjatar, not even the majority actually. And if we go by what is shown in the cinematic, the kul tiran ships at Nazjatar were but a fraction of the bigger kul tiran fleet shown at the end of the Siege of Boralus.

Iron who?
Gnomer who?
Night who?
Exo who?

Doesn't sound like those with human potential.

[therealbowser]

The canon lore is probably that the Alliance lost troops fighting Azshara while the Horde mostly just twiddled their thumbs or hit the Alliance/dealt with Saurfang's rebellion while Alliance cleaned up Azeroth.

That cutscene obviously just wanted to make it feel like Orgrimmar was a real threat, when it obviously wasn't. It felt forced because it was forced, and it felt like it came out of nowhere since it basically did. While the story's direction is bad, this is one of the worst individual cases of the lore being genuinely poorly written in BFA. Kudos to you for pointing it out; it deserves to be noticed and brought up.

- - - Updated - - -

I want to add to my previous post; the only possible other reason is that Anduin was lying to Saurfang because he didn't want to commit all of his forces to fight alongside him in case of betrayal or things went south. This would be clever and diplomatically cunning... which is why I don't think it was the case. Anduin is virtually incapable of lying.

I'd be impressed if that was the case though, and would give a kudo to the lore team for at least doing something that made sense. Alas. Even if this was the case, they were not clear about it, so the end result was about the same. Being coherent is basically as important as writing a good story arc.

[turboether]

TL;DR they were both royally screwed and assumed the other side had the advantage because everything was going horribly wrong for them.

[Aucald]

Both the Horde and the Alliance entered into the Blood War with reduced forces coming out of the Legion War (including the disastrous defeat at the Broken Shore at the start of that war). The opening salvo of the war, itself called the War of Thorns, led to the loss of the majority of the Kaldorei at Teldrassil as well as the loss of Teldrassil itself - a huge blow to the Alliance war effort in and of itself. From there both the Horde and Alliance traded blows across Kul Tiras, Zandalar, and the Arathi Warfront. The next greater movement in the war is the Alliance attack on Zuldazar itself, facilitated by a cunning but costly feint in the swamps of Nazmir - where Telaamon the Blademaster and a host of Alliance forces willingly sacrifice themselves to distract the Horde Champion and elite Horde forces long enough for an Alliance vanguard to land at Dazar'alor and besiege the capitol city of the Zandalari. The Battle of Dazar'alor was itself an Alliance victory, albeit a Pyrrhic one at the end of the day, it established Alliance dominance both at sea and on land (Shaw believes Alliance victory is all but assured in within a week of fighting). Anduin notes that Dazar'alor cost the Alliance a huge amount of manpower (those who died in Nazmir), as well as the near-death of Mekkatorque who is now out of play in suspended animation.

Next, Alliance naval forces including Genn, Jaina, and Shandris chase a joint Zandalari/Forsaken naval convoy to Nazjatar, and massive casualties occur when Azshara uses the Tidestone to open the seas and send all the ships plummeting to the sea floor. The Horde and Alliance enter into a brief armistice to join the fight against the forces of Nazjatar and Azshara, taking the fight to Azshara's palace and leading to the events of the raid. The status quo of the final movement in the War Campaign sees an exhausted and winnowed Alliance land-vanguard alongside Saurfang's Horde coalition forces bringing the fight to the gates of Orgrimmar. The Horde at this point has greater land forces but severely weakened naval power (due to the twin losses at Dazar'alor and Nazjatar), while the Alliance has veritable control of the seas but has suffered a lot of troop casualties - meaning that a protracted land battle against a fortified Orgrimmar is a dicey proposition at best.

[Daevelian]

Usually the pro-Alliance arguments in topics like these goes the opposite way in regards to numbers. But it's a useless endeavor either way. Blizzard will put however many Alliance or Horde whenever needed just how GoT pulled new Dothraki out of the nether just an episode after they all charged to their deaths. And Anduin sent help to Tyrande five seconds after he told her he can't offer any help for a strategically valid reason, then refused to push an advantage because Trolls would be sad, so I'm not exactly sure about them fighting intelligently.

Sadly, i find myself agreeing with this.

But hey, it's fun to speculate.

[Kaleredar]

Azerite. The whole theme of the expansion.

And where were the alliance shown to have a dearth of Azeroth technology, or the horde having acquired more than them?

[FelPlague]

Right before Azshara, the Alliance were crushing it and were weeks from winning the war.

During the setup for Siege of Orgrimmar 2.0, Anduin says it's their last troops.

Am I missing something? What happened?
Did the battle against Azshara dwindle all their numbers or what?

When azshara happened it was 1 horde ship, and nearly the entire alliance fleet, only a handful survived, when your doing the questline for patch 8.2.5 you can walk up to people talking, and many of them talk about how they lost people close to them in azshara. "They were in one of the ships... a quick death atleast..."