Does Horde have -any- relative power to the Alliance?

[Kwento]

Why would machinery every be a threat in a world full of magic? "Oh nooo, not a tank!" *Proceeds to drive a huge shard of ice through it*

I usually see it as a way to give a less versatile magic substitute to non magic characters. You can have a goblin shooting foreballs at you or a goblin with a flamethrower. You know, allows more people to have access to abilities that usually take a lot of time to acquire.

[Shiny212]

You didn’t demonstrate anything but a possible estimation made by a human king based out of the reports that were given to him at the time. At the time the only part of Quel’Thalas that was taken were its borders. If you seriously think that high elves lived solely at their own borders, I don’t see any point in trying to argue with you any further.

I quoted the high elf leader exclaiming "defeat was near". Thats your demonstration.

[Kwento]

I quoted the high elf leader exclaiming "defeat was near". Thats your demonstration.

Yes, because it was obviously approaching, because elves had no way of stopping the troll advance. But the furthest they have gone were the BORDERS OF QUEL’THALAS.

[Darkeon]

I might be a little biased, but yeah, the Horde is definitely the better faction.

[Captain Douchebag]

At the start of WoD the Alliance lost one of their strongest military bases Netherguard Keep. The Alliance sent a real force into Draenor led by Admiral Taylor (who all died) the Horde did not send a similar force most of our troops are locals. They also committed more ships and gunships to the Broken Isles.

By the time BFA happens the fleet had shrank considerably the rest of which is destroyed by Princess Talanji during our escape. Thats why Jaina was sent to Kul'tiras.

So are you just going to keep pulling stuff out of your ass?

[Saverem]

Plot armor not withstanding, I honestly just don't see why Horde as a faction is even a thing in post-BfA world. Let's break it down:

Plot armor is king. It's how Batman can beat Superman, but also, a lot of your points are just assumptions. You assume there are more X race than Y race.

Another thing I think you are completely overlooking are Goblin engineering. You say Undead is our strongest race, NOPE! It's Goblins. I'd say in terms of raw warmachine inventions, Goblins are the #1 race in the game, easily beating out Gnomish engineering. If you want proof look no further than Azshara where they literally blasted the entire zone into the Horde symbol. Something you can literally see from space if you look at Azeroth through Argus/Vindicar.

Thanks to Goblins the Horde has just as much IF NOT BETTER war time tech than the Alliance. Sure, it's a lot cruder, but look at the mana bomb (aka WoW version of a tactical nuke) that deleted Theramore from existence and tell me it's not effective.

Also, we already know Horde wins in the physical strength department like you mentioned, but not only that, they also win when it comes to the more wisdom/earth style of powers that are involved in Shamanism and Druidism. So while Alliance does beat Horde in intellectual classes like Mages and Warlocks (even though Horde now have THE ULTIMATE arcane race, the Nightborne backing them up as well as BELFs), the Horde wins in Shamanism and Druidism on top of physical strength roles.

[bloodmoth13]

Im horde, but i have to agree with op, alliance have been shown to have far better tech and access to better units, it doesnt matter that 1 tauren can take out 5 humans if humans outpopulate tauren by 7-1. individual strength only matters if the war comes down to duels, overall strength is a major factor.

Also, faction heroes probably shouldnt be counted, for instance, there are alliance warlock heroes, but they are not an official part of any army, in fact you could entirely discount warlocks from both factions since neither would officially employ them.

I think this is more an issue of blizz not fleshing out the different races technology/magic/tactics. Id like to see the combat application of voodoo for instance, or what percent of the army is occupied by which classes. Night elves for example i dont imagine having many warriors or soldiers, but they have a disproportionate amount of druids and 'hunters', less so of all of the other classes. Humans have a ton of warriors, priests and paladins, their footsoldiers arent top tier melee, but human support is probably the best of any race in the game, meaning a human priest and a footsoldier would be a match for a tauren.
Damn, blizz need to do warcraft 4 and have army groups for each race, i want to see what pure tauren and darkspear armies would look like...

[Shiny212]

Yes, because it was obviously approaching, because elves had no way of stopping the troll advance. But the furthest they have gone were the BORDERS OF QUEL’THALAS.

so you agree with me? great.

[Saverem]

Why would machinery every be a threat in a world full of magic? "Oh nooo, not a tank!" *Proceeds to drive a huge shard of ice through it*

Lorewise, it's not easy to summon a giant shard of ice that can pierce through an armored tank. Only very few characters can actually do this lore-wise. Khadgar could, but he still had to channel for a bit to summon enough power to destroy a small dam in WoD's intro scenario. I'm sure Jaina could as well.

A normal Mage adventurer...Nope.

[MikeBogina]

So... yeah. Can some more horde-aligned players give me a different perspective on the matter? Cause it looks to me that red VS blue is swiftly devolving to a mix of 16th - 30th century warfare -somehow- struggling to defeat bronze age barbarians and their slightly less backwards friends. It's getting a bit ridiculous.

The game and how things worked changed a lot from Warcraft to World of Warcraft.

Humans are your basic people with few knowing magic. Much of the race died off fairly easy in the Third War and lost most of their powerful characters. And their race is heavily dependent on finances. Everything that was a cause for concern to the humans of the north, however isn't for the humans of the south.

Stormwind humans have pumped out mages, paladins and an endless supply of humans. Money never seems to be a problem for them, despite their city being recently rebuilt and not able to pay for it themselves, and even the portion they were supposed to, never did. When on the battlefield, they seem to not even be the same race as the ones in the North as they're able to fight the undead and orcs without much problem. Their plotarmor is through the roof.

Dwarves, nothing much has changed. Ironforge dwarves in the First and Second war were kept under siege by a single Orc Clan, and they seem to still be around that level of power.

Gnomes are gnomes.

Night Elves, lost a huge battle against the orcs when they first met and seem to not be able to handle them. This seems to be constant through RoC and WoW.

Draenei, these are survivors who hid while many of the warriors died. Some of them are warriors forced to hiding, but many of the original fighters are either dead or broken at this point. They're better suited teaching and healing.

Orcs, they're designed to fight and they've been doing it for a long time. Even a female Orc is stronger than a human male. When it comes to melee fighting, they're unmatched. Yet their numbers though often shown smaller than humans, is constantly not depleting despite losing so many in the siege and other places.

Tauren, you didn't mention this one, but they're huge. Strongest of the races and a single tauren could destroy and siege equipment fielded by the Alliance. They're shrunk in game, but they as big as vrykul and ogres. They add a lot with shamanism and druidism aswell.

Goblins, a lot of destruction and more efficient when an orc is ordering them around. They're technology is hugely underused in game, but in Beyond the Dark Portal, they gave the Horde a bomb that could blow up an army.

Blood Elves, they field a huge amount of mages, more than any other(dalaran is neutral again!!!) and their people know how to fight in the battlefied. Honestly would love to have seen Lorthemar become Warchief just to see how the Blood Elves were developed more. They would dominate any alliance race alone with their versatility.

Forsaken... the most powerful of the races... neutered thanks to WoW. In RoC we saw was a small cult of people could do with the plague, we saw how unstoppable the Scourge was and how effective everything they used was. They had a solution to ever problem that arose and the most powerful Paladin, mage and whatever Antonidas was couldn't stop Arthas a DeathKnight. Even the mages gathered couldn't do anything to stop them thanks to Sylvanas' Banshee wail.

The Forsaken is the Scourge without the Lich King. They have the means to create the same force as the Scourge did and their individual members are more powerful thanks to free will. Where someone might have been a weak peasant or farmer in life, in undeath new powers are at their fingertips. Even Godfrey who had no powers was still able to use necromancy shortly after becoming forsaken. With the Val'kyr, Sylvanas' army should be ever growing, but Forsaken aren't the main race in WoW, so they can't be doing that.

And to what you said about the Val'kyr... sylvanas still has val'kyr, she even has new val'kyr. To create Val'kyr, she somehow has found out how to achieve that, but if she were able to get Eyir, she could make 100's easily.
And you also said there should only be 1000's left... that is ridiculous. The Val'kyr are described as raising 100's of new forsaken daily. They humans should be in the 1000's after all these wars and battles. Stormwind humans are endless...

Also another thing to point out. Many of the Horde races has had members who've become extremely powerful to only be put down, while the alliance doesn't suffer the latter. But when you look at them and add them to the race, the Horde is very much more stronger in their fields. The Goblins in SoO and even WoD shown that those weapons added to the horde, would lead the alliance easily being defeated. Garrosh and his orcs needed all the other races to band together to beat him. All the Warlords in Draenor the powers and weapons they had. All the blood elves we had to fight that became powerful, kaelthas and the vampire chick, the zandalari and eve the other trolls using loa powers and using massive creatures in battles.

The Horde for some reason doesn't get those cool things, or else there wouldn't be an Alliance in BFA. So you're kinda lucky the horde gets short changed what they should have.

- - - Updated - - -

Why would machinery every be a threat in a world full of magic? "Oh nooo, not a tank!" *Proceeds to drive a huge shard of ice through it*

lol this actually very accurate.

[Kwento]

so you agree with me? great.

Great. Elves were loosing, potentially facing huge losses, but before any serious damage they were helped by humans.

[frogger237]

Except Blizzard explicitly said majority of Orcs sided with Vol'jin. And the Goblins that followed Garrosh weren't even from Bilgewater Cartel but from Blackfuse Company.

You got a quote on the orc thing? Because if thats true how the fuck couldn't the horde take back org by themselves?

Void Elves are a handful. And they go into Void even deeper than Shadow Priests.

Void elves are still being made tho, blood elves and high elves are going to the rift.

And it doesn't matter if they go deeper Lor'themar kicked out the high elves just for refusing to drain creatures, do you really think if there was even a slight possibility that a shadow priest could fuck with the Sunwell that they wouldn't be banished as well?

[jackofwind]

Why would machinery every be a threat in a world full of magic? "Oh nooo, not a tank!" *Proceeds to drive a huge shard of ice through it*

Because magic can enhance machinery.

Magitek, if you will

- - - Updated - - -

You got a quote on the orc thing? Because if thats true how the fuck couldn't the horde take back org by themselves?

Because the Horde is divided and weak.

[bloodmoth13]

Also, we already know Horde wins in the physical strength department like you mentioned, but not only that, they also win when it comes to the more wisdom/earth style of powers that are involved in Shamanism and Druidism. So while Alliance does beat Horde in intellectual classes like Mages and Warlocks (even though Horde now have THE ULTIMATE arcane race, the Nightborne backing them up as well as BELFs), the Horde wins in Shamanism and Druidism on top of physical strength roles.

how does the alliance win in magic when the horde has quel thalas and suramar? alliance have the kirin tor, granted, but i still think thats second rate to the highborne? and its not that a large portion of dalaran didnt swear for the horde either. I know the draenie are supposed to be godlike mages, but i got the feeling that they abandoned that in favor of the light and that the mages became a smaller part of their faction, so i assume that they would make a less significant part of their main forces. Gnomes prefer engineering, they have a talent for magic when it comes to it, but i doubt mages and warlocks would make greater than 4% of their main forces

Also, i get the impression in lore that its quite difficult to become a mage, while shamanism takes more of a lifestyle, i can imagine that horde shaman would outnumber alliance mages by a large margin just because the horde races are generally much more attuned to the elements, so while not as sophisticated as the alliance i think they have access to powerful and wild offensive magic (lightning bolts and fireballs sort of thing) a lot more readily than the more tactical, less offensive alliance magic (polymorph, slow, teleporting etc)

Also i wonder how the races would stack in different combat scenarios, in a decisive battle i dont see troll regen mattering, but it would be godlike in guerrilla warfare and wars of attrition or other drawn out conflicts. Same with forsaken, they dont need to eat, they could hold a siege for decades without provisions taking a toll.
I think in the case of tactics horde would have an advantage in guerrilla warfare and hit and run tactics, orcs make great raiders for example. Dwarves and gnomes would probably be the best for siege tactics, and i think humans specialty is mass melee with shield walls and group conflict.

The way i see an all out war happening between both factions is the alliance grouping fro a huge mass melee, while the horde splinters and performs geurrilla tactics, the alliance will win the main conflict, but they would return home to nothing. Horde can live off the land as nomads, alliance races wouldnt perform nearly as well.

[RyanEX]

If you think about it, population-wise the Horde should be much less powerful than it is in game, there's not a single horde race that was not on the brink of total annihilation at some point over the last decade or two. But then again, faction balance...

I actually think that is the reason behind the choices of the allied races. I'll keep my personal opinion out of it but consider.

The Alliance get the 1)Lightforged Draenei, a fraction of a fraction of an entire race
2)Void Elves, again, a fraction of a fraction of an entire race and
3)Dark Iron Dwarves who most likely make up those that were still under Raggies control until Cataclysm.

So the Alliance gain three allied races with ridiculously small populations, if you can even call it that.

The Horde get 1)The Highmountain Tauren, which could fill in as an entire new faction if they weren't Tauren
2)Nightborne elves which while small as a race still possibly make up more than both the Lightforged and the Void Elves.
3)Zandalari trolls who also could be considered a new faction if they weren't also trolls.

So in essence I'd say that the Horde are probably back to what they were before the supposed gutting in Cataclysm, even though Blizz changed their minds and stated that a SMALL number of orcs followed Garrosh, so it could actually be that they're even stronger now than before.

[Saverem]

how does the alliance win in magic when the horde has quel thalas and suramar? alliance have the kirin tor, granted, but i still think thats second rate to the highborne? and its not that a large portion of dalaran didnt swear for the horde either. I know the draenie are supposed to be godlike mages, but i got the feeling that they abandoned that in favor of the light and that the mages became a smaller part of their faction, so i assume that they would make a less significant part of their main forces. Gnomes prefer engineering, they have a talent for magic when it comes to it, but i doubt mages and warlocks would make greater than 4% of their main forces

Also, i get the impression in lore that its quite difficult to become a mage, while shamanism takes more of a lifestyle, i can imagine that horde shaman would outnumber alliance mages by a large margin just because the horde races are generally much more attuned to the elements, so while not as sophisticated as the alliance i think they have access to powerful and wild offensive magic (lightning bolts and fireballs sort of thing) a lot more readily than the more tactical, less offensive alliance magic (polymorph, slow, teleporting etc)

Also i wonder how the races would stack in different combat scenarios, in a decisive battle i dont see troll regen mattering, but it would be godlike in guerrilla warfare and wars of attrition or other drawn out conflicts. Same with forsaken, they dont need to eat, they could hold a siege for decades without provisions taking a toll.
I think in the case of tactics horde would have an advantage in guerrilla warfare and hit and run tactics, orcs make great raiders for example. Dwarves and gnomes would probably be the best for siege tactics, and i think humans specialty is mass melee with shield walls and group conflict.

The way i see an all out war happening between both factions is the alliance grouping fro a huge mass melee, while the horde splinters and performs geurrilla tactics, the alliance will win the main conflict, but they would return home to nothing. Horde can live off the land as nomads, alliance races wouldnt perform nearly as well.

Horde definitely got beefed up in the Mage department when they took in BELFs and now Nightborne. If just feels like Alliance have more prominent Mages and more of them. I'm also counting Jaina as an Alliance since she is decidedly hateful of the Horde right now.


But yeah, with the BELF and Nightborne, the Horde's arcane arts are looking pretty powerful as well.

- - - Updated - - -

I actually think that is the reason behind the choices of the allied races. I'll keep my personal opinion out of it but consider.

The Alliance get the 1)Lightforged Draenei, a fraction of a fraction of an entire race
2)Void Elves, again, a fraction of a fraction of an entire race and
3)Dark Iron Dwarves who most likely make up those that were still under Raggies control until Cataclysm.

So the Alliance gain three allied races with ridiculously small populations, if you can even call it that.

The Horde get 1)The Highmountain Tauren, which could fill in as an entire new faction if they weren't Tauren
2)Nightborne elves which while small as a race still possibly make up more than both the Lightforged and the Void Elves.
3)Zandalari trolls who also could be considered a new faction if they weren't also trolls.

So in essence I'd say that the Horde are probably back to what they were before the supposed gutting in Cataclysm, even though Blizz changed their minds and stated that a SMALL number of orcs followed Garrosh, so it could actually be that they're even stronger now than before.

Don't forget Mag'har for Horde. If the Mag'har they get are from WoD, it means they'll pretty much be getting AN ENTIRE PLANET'S WORTH OF ORCS fighting for them.

[RyanEX]

Horde definitely got beefed up in the Mage department when they took in BELFs and now Nightborne. If just feels like Alliance have more prominent Mages and more of them. I'm also counting Jaina as an Alliance since she is decidedly hateful of the Horde right now.


But yeah, with the BELF and Nightborne, the Horde's arcane arts are looking pretty powerful as well.

They had to give them magical might since they've lost the raw power edge with the Draenei and the Worgen.

[Dagoth Ur]

They had to give them magical might since they've lost the raw power edge with the Draenei and the Worgen.

Are you talking about physical strength? Because I am pretty sure Tauren and maybe even orc still surpass those two.

[bloodmoth13]

Horde definitely got beefed up in the Mage department when they took in BELFs and now Nightborne. If just feels like Alliance have more prominent Mages and more of them. I'm also counting Jaina as an Alliance since she is decidedly hateful of the Horde right now.


But yeah, with the BELF and Nightborne, the Horde's arcane arts are looking pretty powerful as well.

Right. well i think when considering combat capabilities of the military its best to discount the hero characters since they are so heavily plot influenced.
Jaina would outclass all horde mages, but an average nightborne or blood elf mage would likely outclass a human mage, and while i imagine gnomes could become superior mages, they would be in short supply, wheras the highborne races are culturally magi.

Yeah, alliance have the more important mages to lore, but horde i think definitely have the more powerful militant mages.

If i were to consider numbers, id think that nightborne and blood elves would have about 20% of their forces being mages, humans would probably have less than 5%, and i imagine that the humans would probably be the alliance race that would proportionately field the most mages of all alliance races.

Adventurers and heroes discounting, talking specifically the actual military, for instance i dont imagine sunwalkers being an official part of the tauren military but rather unique heroes that could aid them from time to time.

[Aquamonkey]

Jaina would outclass all horde mages,

Funny because canonically, Jaina couldn't do shit to Thalen. She's also shit without the Focusing Iris compared to Thrall.