How did the alliance suddenly lose so many?

[Rune B]

Nah the Alliance just up and somehow lost most of their forces somewhere off screen before Dazar'alor. The writers weren't concerned with a consistent war story, they just wanted a cheap framing device to show their character dramas against.

This seems to be the case. The Alliance were always far more numerous than the Horde, and suddenly Sylvanas has the largest army on Azeroth.

WTF?

[Thetruth1400]

This is true. Even in that cinematic where Anduin releases Saurfang from the Stockades they act like their army is gone. We never actually see the army being beaten or destroyed, but we're constantly told that they're running out of troops.

Oh well, it is what it is.

This. We've always been told that the Horde are the underdogs; the faction that came together because they were weaker and needed each other to survive. The stories of many of the Horde races are always about how they're such small remnants of much larger groups.

- The Orcs - Only those left who made it through the portal and the remains of those left after the wars and internment camps.
- The Tauren - Were forced to live as nomads because they constant attacks from the centaur.
- The Forsaken - A small fraction of undead who retained their intelligence and broke away from the Scourge.
- The Blood Elves - A fraction of a remnant of a people decimated by the Scourge. Not only were most of the High Elves wiped out, but the remaining Blood Elves also subdivided several other ways.
- The Goblins - One group of goblins; the Bilgewater Cartel.

So basically, a rag tag group of misfits is constantly successful against the technologically advanced, extremely more man-powered Alliance. Even if the races are clearly bigger and stronger, an axe isn't stronger than a flying airship with cannons.

The writing for WoW has kind of been shit for a while though, so emotional story takes the place of actual cohesiveness.

The only thing that could help to make any sense is if they came out and said that Alliance were the ones leading the charge in Legion and suffered the most as a result. The reality is, they didn't though. The Alliance are just shown to lose fight after fight off screen, most likely because no amount of plot armor could make it make sense for them to actually lose on screen.

The only thing that made sense on screen was the events leading up to Naz'jatar where the Alliance (basically Kul'Tiran) fleet followed the remnants of the entire Horde fleet into a trap and was lost. How that eliminated the entire Alliance fleet which wasn't even there, their air ships, gnome and dwarven tech, etc. and made the Alliance "only have enough for one more push" who knows. The events up until that point, there was absolutely no sense to be had as to why the Alliance was apparently so beaten back.

[Varodoc]

To be honest, you can't even use the excuse that many Alliance soldiers died at Lordaeron, because it's also true that a lot of Horde soldiers unnecessarily died in the War of Thorns. Malfurion with his wall of wisps single-handedly destroyed like an entire army, leaving only Sylvanas alive.

[Teerack]

Their entire fleet was chasing the last three boats the horde had when Azhara opened the ocean and killed pretty much everyone.

[lockybalboa]

They don't wanna make the Horde players feel bad you see

[bufferunderrun]

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 i think alliance professional force is pretty much depleted, the human (and probably dwarf and gnome) aren't a warrior race but most probably have an army of recruited professional, when shit hit the fan they can force recruit all the at age male and female that can hold a sword (and if i remember correctly Anduin mention the farmers).

It require time to train someone to a decent level considering the alliance is moving troops since pandaria and pretty much pandaria->wod->legion and bfa have been huge loss for the regular army of the horde and alliance they being in deep shit is not a surprise.

The horde maybe a bit better cuz every non peon can be a decent warrior but i think even for them those years of loss have put an huge toll on the manpower.