Your opinion on the Iron Horde

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

What is your personnal opinion on the Iron Horde created by Garrosh Hellscream in AU Draenor which served as the main antagonist group of Warlords of Draenor ?

Of all the major antagonist factions the Iron Horde was clearly my least favorite with them being basically an AU and poorly well-written version of the Old Horde, with a catastrophic lack of characterization and depth for the Iron Horde leaders even if there was potential for them to get deeper and more complex writing especially for Ner'zhul and Kilrogg Deadeye; plus the fact that unlike the Scourge and the Burning Legion they didn't feel like a real threat to the Alliance and the Horde at all with their so-called apocalyptic invasion being comically easily thwarved by the adventurers and them having tried to invade without having conquered and secured Draenor before with the Draenei and Arakkoa and the Primals and Breakers still being well and healthy factions on AU Draenor.

There was also lots of wasted potential with them with their alliance with the Ogres of Highmaul being little exploited despite it showing some interesting promises with the potential of AU Orcs learning arcane and of the Iron Horde using the magic breakers as a way to counter MU Azeroth mages and other magic users, and also that many clans such as the Dragonmaw or Bonechewers weren't seen at all in WOD, and also their leaders being killed so quickly and easely with Kargath Bladefist and Orgrim Doomhammer being the most flagrant examples, even when they were supposed to live longer and have a greater role in the Alpha.

I think it would also have been more interesting to see some tensions and internal rivalries inside the Iron Horde from the start, with Blackhand being shown to be ambitious and ressentful of not being the warchief despite his clan being the strongest and industrial heart of the Iron Horde, or of other chieftains thinking that Ner'zhul (as the spiritual leader of the Orcs at the time) should have been the warchief, or being upset about dark shamanism (which wasn't used on Draenor until long after the elements had broken their ties with the Orcs due to the genocide of the Draenei).

[DatToffer]

The concept was cool. Like you said, a lot of potential wasted because of cut content. It gave us some really cool assets we got to see again in BFA like the aircraft carrier.

But, I really would have loved to see the Mongrel Horde. Especially as some sort of Team Rocket goofy villains, with Garrosh as their exasperated leader. That's the kind of dynamic I enjoy.

[Venziir]

What is your personnal opinion on the Iron Horde created by Garrosh Hellscream in AU Draenor which served as the main antagonist group of Warlords of Draenor ?

Of all the major antagonist factions the Iron Horde was clearly my least favorite with them being basically an AU and poorly well-written version of the Old Horde, with a catastrophic lack of characterization and depth for the Iron Horde leaders even if there was potential for them to get deeper and more complex writing especially for Ner'zhul and Kilrogg Deadeye; plus the fact that unlike the Scourge and the Burning Legion they didn't feel like a real threat to the Alliance and the Horde at all with their so-called apocalyptic invasion being comically easily thwarved by the adventurers and them having tried to invade without having conquered and secured Draenor before with the Draenei and Arakkoa and the Primals and Breakers still being well and healthy factions on AU Draenor.

There was also lots of wasted potential with them with their alliance with the Ogres of Highmaul being little exploited despite it showing some interesting promises with the potential of AU Orcs learning arcane and of the Iron Horde using the magic breakers as a way to counter MU Azeroth mages and other magic users, and also that many clans such as the Dragonmaw or Bonechewers weren't seen at all in WOD, and also their leaders being killed so quickly and easely with Kargath Bladefist and Orgrim Doomhammer being the most flagrant examples, even when they were supposed to live longer and have a greater role in the Alpha.

I think it would also have been more interesting to see some tensions and internal rivalries inside the Iron Horde from the start, with Blackhand being shown to be ambitious and ressentful of not being the warchief despite his clan being the strongest and industrial heart of the Iron Horde, or of other chieftains thinking that Ner'zhul (as the spiritual leader of the Orcs at the time) should have been the warchief, or being upset about dark shamanism (which wasn't used on Draenor until long after the elements had broken their ties with the Orcs due to the genocide of the Draenei).

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bon...nate_universe) The Bonechewer were present in WoD - albeit in an odd way.

[Tarba]

Wasted potential.
A united full horde with a very advanced technology was easily defeated in their own timeline by a bunch of guys from an other world and other timeline with little to no help possible from their homeworld and who just survived a very destructive war and civil war.

That was pathetic writing again.

[Caerule]

For me, the main problem was cut content leading to lack of development of characters, and mishandling in general.. The concept itself was cool enough to me. An alternate Draenor. A Horde with a different advantage then fel. And seeing if we could save that world from destruction.

I mean, the rewrites to Gorgrond meant all of the development of Orgrim Doomhammer got cut, so he's suddenly fighting Blackhand. Yrel is clearly missing a chapter in her story, with the missing Shattrath raid. So is Grommash, if you ask me. His heel-turn in that trailer to suddenly be our biggest fan, makes no sense. But it could have made sense if there had been like, a cease-fire to deal with the demon invasion of Shattrath.

But I think the saddest part is how Durotan got robbed. We were allied with his clan. We got the Laughing Skull on his side. But in an alternate version of WoD, we would have beaten down all the clans, and as a part of the Horde story, seen them join the strongest clan, the Frostwolves, and seen Durotan rise to Warchief of this new Horde. It was his strength and vision that prevailed over the Iron Horde of conquest, and Gul'dan's Fel corruption. It was him Grommash should have yielded his position to. Keeping Grommash as Warchief was absurd.

[enigma77]

Well if you can ignore the whole time travel to an alternate reality bullshit, then it was a cool concept, I guess.

[Zendhal The Black]

they felt like a canon fodder

Ner'zhul was a whimp
Blackhand was cool
Grommash was pathetic
Kargath was OK I guess?
Kill'rog was lame
Gul'dan was good
IDK if there's any more of them, that's how underwhelming it was...

Also attacking Azeroth while you don't have whole of Draenor under your control... And Garrosh is supposed to be a good commander?

[Makabreska]

Concept was cool, with different clans being nicely distinct. But it turned out they were incompetent af and easily dismantled. Also, we discovered that Horde didn't need demon blood to become a genocidal invaders.

[Arikara]

Garrosh and all his mistakes are better wiped away, like so much wasted potential.

Dranosh should have been Warchief. Or Cairne.

[Lord Pebbleton]

Worst opponent we've ever had. We basically won the war against them during the prepatch, then we mopped up the leftovers in Blackrock. From the actual day one of the expansion, they were already screwed, since the first thing we do when we arrive in Draenor is destroying the Dark Portal. From then on, we are free to come and go and to conquer them, and they cannot do anything but pray.

Just a pathetic villain. Zovaal sucked a lot, but the mawsworn were threatening and the Maw scenario mirrored the Broken Shore with its feeling of hopelessness. So the iron horde is ten times worse than even that.

[Aucald]

The Iron Horde was an interesting concept with bad execution, like much of WoD itself, sadly. The idea of an alternate dimension/time travel expansion that explored a pre-Outland Draenor and its culture and denizens was really cool on paper, but regrettably didn't really lend itself to WoW as a whole, both in whole and in part.

[Lolites]

The Iron Horde was an interesting concept with bad execution, like much of WoD itself, sadly.

tbf, WoD is not so much different in this regard from rest of WoW

[Aucald]

tbf, WoD is not so much different in this regard from rest of WoW

I put WoD on the lower tier of WoW's various expansions in terms of execution.

[VinceVega]

potential was there. And i honestly enjoyed WoD.

Problem was they did not just tell a alternate story. They tried to connect it to the main story. That is where everything broke down.

Also they did not give the leaders of the iron horde enough screentime. 5/6 of them have been basically just an orc with a bit of an odd look.
They needed more. Way more.

Also half of WoD felt like they abanond most of the ideas they had during developmetn and just thought nobody will notice. Huge Setpieces like Karabor and that ogre fortress just empty. That all contributed to a Iron horde that felt like... train engineers... what als did they do exactly?

[Izalla]

When I found out we would get to see Draenor pre-destruction I was soooo excited. The "iron" part of "Iron Horde" was something I was not a fan of as it meant we still did not see proper Draenor and instead got a weirdly industrial version. On the other hand, it was a neat concept and a way to make the Mag'har allied race more distinct and unique later on.

But the warlords themselves were all fairly lame and were changed in odd ways for no other reason than to do something else I guess? I mean why was Blackhand perpetually on fire and looking nothing like previously depicted? Because they thought it looked cool. Pretty much none of them had much of an impact beyond the first raid tier and thus the opening story. And Orgrim Doomhammer who? Blink and miss him.

Basically I wasn't a fan of the concept at first but I still wish Blizz had at least fulfilled the potential of what they cooked up by bringing that world and all those characters back.

[DatToffer]

I realize we're talking a lot about wasted potential and I'm wondering if anything in wow actually lived up to its potential.

[Nemah]

They were possibly very cool / tons of potential, but in the end underutilized to the point they were just background scenery.

[Kithelle]

Wasted potential.
A united full horde with a very advanced technology was easily defeated in their own timeline by a bunch of guys from an other world and other timeline with little to no help possible from their homeworld and who just survived a very destructive war and civil war.

That was pathetic writing again.

Umm...yes very advanced, explosives and cannons really are so much more advanced than the space ships and energy weapons that Draenei had

[Flurryfang]

I personally liked the originally idea of the Iron Horde better, with Garrosh gathering the downtrotten races of Azeroth in his own horde, with gnolls, kobolds and murlocs as his troopers, all being boosted with goblin engineering :O

That said, i don't think there was much wrong with the idea of the Iron Horde in WoD, the problem was simply that it was a player during the worst expansion yet when it comes to telling a coherent story. They did not get to do anything really and were only half setup.

They could have been an amazing faction, if you made the Warlords have their own story arcs and be the focal point of the Iron Hordes development through the entire expansion. Seeing a engineer boosted Grom would have been awesome, same with boss fights happening on big machines and flying machines :O

So there was plenty of potential with the faction, but it would have required that Blizzard actually had the resourses to make them work.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean, the rewrites to Gorgrond meant all of the development of Orgrim Doomhammer got cut, so he's suddenly fighting Blackhand. Yrel is clearly missing a chapter in her story, with the missing Shattrath raid. So is Grommash, if you ask me. His heel-turn in that trailer to suddenly be our biggest fan, makes no sense. But it could have made sense if there had been like, a cease-fire to deal with the demon invasion of Shattrath.

This is why i really can't blame the writers for WoD that much for the state of the expansion. It is clear that they had written and prepared for a somewhat complete story, and then the entire middle of everybodies character development is cut out and you are left with little to put together a complete story.

[Itisamuh]

I liked the concept well enough other than the time travel nonsense, but they just failed to seem all that threatening compared to a lot of the other enemies before that. Blizzard trying to hype up each new threat as the most dangerous we have ever faced failed to deliver massively with them, but otherwise they were a cool enemy.