Warcraft: The Rules of War?

[Faroth]

Garrosh kept his intentions secret until he dropped the bomb. Read "Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War" and you'll see this easily enough. Were Horde soldiers killed by the bomb? I don't remember any, but even if there were, it would have been a small number (compared to the larger number of casualties had the conventional fight continued). Further still, this would be an issue of reckless risk-taking by Garrosh than war crimes. As for the dragons Garrosh stole the bomb from, I think you may have something there, but I don't recall anyone getting upset about how Garrosh got the weapon - they seem to be enraged more about "zomg, he bombed Theramore."

Scrap the bomb, the other leaders were against marching on Theramore regardless. Theramore had long been the only bastion of truce between Horde and Alliance, led by a long time ally and supporter of Thrall, and thus one of the few friendly voices supporting the Horde as being non-monsters among the Alliance. Vol'jin and Baine knew this and were against the attack from the start. Hell, Baine warned the Alliance ahead of time to try and save them if possible. They were against attacking Theramore, period.

And they were even more pissed when they realized he sacrificed Horde soldiers just to put on a show before dropping the bomb. The bomb may not have killed them, but the Horde was being killed and defeated by the Alliance. If only Garrosh knew of the plan to drop the mana bomb, you can be assured the Horde soldiers were fighting with all their might to claim the city. They were sent in to a fight without need, a fight Garrosh had no intention of concluding. That's why Vol'jin and Baine felt it was dishonorable and that Garrosh betrayed his own soldiers.

Is it? According to whose laws?

My question is more along these lines:
You've accepted the dragon enslaving Dragonmaw Clan and now you've slain members of the Blue Dragonflight and stolen the Focusing Iris. HOW does the Horde not have the Dragonflights turning against them under Garrosh at this point? There's no real rational explanation short of plot armor.

[Aeryana]

In this setting? Sure, legitimate act of war. There's no conventions or protocols to outlaw these weapons in this setting. Could have sworn the Horde attempted to prevent any civilians from escaping, but I guess my memory is fuzzy.

Baffles me as to why the Alliance is too stupid to return the favors in kind -- especially with the Forsaken pulling the same WMD silliness in Gilneas and Southshore. This is why I'm honestly baffled about how you people say, "Jaina's gone cray, mang." Her response seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

Regardless, the Horde pissed off three neutral factions with this stunt so the more the merrier for the Horde stomping that's about to go down I always say.

[Holtzmann]

It was a powerful weapon, that is all. And it gained them victory without too much casualties for the Horde (the only way the Horde realistically can get longterm victories because their numbers are much much smaller than the Alliances).

Either way when David Kosak says that "Garrosh is all about Honor and Victory or Death," then I'll take his word for it that that is the theme and direction they like to present for Garrosh.

The only direct example of something dishonorable (even by the most ancient chinese codes of war) was the Alliance attack on Taurajo, waiting until only defenseless civilians and children were left so they could slaughter them.

Well, it gained them a tactical victory for sure. It also just happened to create a huge strategic enemy in the form of a very angry Jaina Proudmoore who almost wiped Orgrimmar out, which culminated in the Horde losing access to Dalaran. But that's arguing that it was an unwise move, not dishonorable.

And when David Kosak says that "Garrosh is all about Honor and Victory or Death", I'm fairly sure you can assume that's Garrosh's view of it. Of course he would find it honorable. Same with infusing his soldiers with Sha energy or trying to use the power of an Old God (you know, the guys wanting to turn Azeroth into their playground of death and destruction). I'm sure he'd argue that kicking Grandmother Geyah into a volcano would be the honorable thing to do if that would allow him to kill his enemies more efficiently.

Also, are we really going to argue Taurajo again? 'Slaughtering civilians' doesn't seem very to close to 'letting them escape'. But hey, enjoy yourself.

[Zaelsino]

It was "justified" in that Theramore was very much a valid target for invasion. It's been a military port since day one and has aided in the Alliance war effort since Cataclysm.

What Garrosh did to get his results (the bombing, the slaughter of blue dragons, the Kirin Tor traitors, the theft of the iris, etc.)? Not so much.

[Thage]

Also worth keeping in mind that after Theramore, Garrosh repeatedly abused the trust of neutral factions to steal megaweapons from them, in one case by stripmining holy ground in Pandaria for artifacts in a zone the Horde was let into on good faith and in another by abusing the portal network in Dalaran to launch a surprise raid on Darnassus, causing the Sunreavers' imprisonment/execution and the Kirin Tor a) banning the Horde from Dalaran and b) joining the Alliance war effort.

He allows his personal guard to behave like the KGB or the Waffen SS (apologies for Godwinning the thread, but it's an accurate comparison and one I can't believe isn't intentional), beating and torturing orcs who even hint at dissent with Hellscream's rule and burning down entire inns where dissenters of the non-ubermensch races stay. He sends an assassin after Vol'jin when most orcs consider assassins up there with warlocks and death knights on the list of things hardly worth scrapin' off one's boot. He doesn't take prisoners, and expects every non-orcish race to embrace what amounts to being the war machine's glorified slave labor and meat shields.

Garrosh may be about Victory or Death, but any sense of honor he plays by is horribly skewed, and it's obvious his Kor'kron don't play by any rules of war. If it's out there, they'll use every dirty trick in the book to get it, regardless of what bridges they have to burn and regardless of who in particular ends up baying for their blood. Small wonder just about every faction outside Orgrimmar is out for Hellscream's head these days.

[Aquamonkey]

People often debate whether Stonetalon Garrosh and MoP Garrosh are the same Warchief. Is there something afoot?
How so? He never ordered nukes wasted on civilian targets and still wouldn't. (Source)

It didn't seem he cared if Theramore had civs in ToW.
Theramore completely a military target, more so when the civs have chance to escape. (Source)

[Jediguy]

Scrap the bomb, the other leaders were against marching on Theramore regardless. Theramore had long been the only bastion of truce between Horde and Alliance, led by a long time ally and supporter of Thrall, and thus one of the few friendly voices supporting the Horde as being non-monsters among the Alliance. Vol'jin and Baine knew this and were against the attack from the start. Hell, Baine warned the Alliance ahead of time to try and save them if possible. They were against attacking Theramore, period.

There's no doubt Garrosh acted unilaterally apart from the desire of other Horde leaders, but I guess that's a perk of being Warchief. Even so, this is not an argument against Garrosh attacking Theramore; only noting that the decision was not unanimous. I don't see how anyone can say that Theramore was not a good military target to attack and thus weaken the Alliance's growing presence on Kalimdore. Jaina may have been the most friendly Alliance toward the Horde, but she's still allowing the Alliance to use her port city to wage war against the Horde. "Friendly" or not, a Warchief that wants to secure the sovereignty of his territory against an invading force would put a stop to that.

And they were even more pissed when they realized he sacrificed Horde soldiers just to put on a show before dropping the bomb. The bomb may not have killed them, but the Horde was being killed and defeated by the Alliance. If only Garrosh knew of the plan to drop the mana bomb, you can be assured the Horde soldiers were fighting with all their might to claim the city. They were sent in to a fight without need, a fight Garrosh had no intention of concluding. That's why Vol'jin and Baine felt it was dishonorable and that Garrosh betrayed his own soldiers.

Possibly, but again, this isn't what the Alliance fanboys are crying about. I never saw any of them say "zomg, you could have just nuked Theramore from the beginning and saved all those Horde soldiers!"

My question is more along these lines:
You've accepted the dragon enslaving Dragonmaw Clan and now you've slain members of the Blue Dragonflight and stolen the Focusing Iris. HOW does the Horde not have the Dragonflights turning against them under Garrosh at this point? There's no real rational explanation short of plot armor.

Yeah, go figure. Perhaps they're afraid of the Horde?

[Archangel Tyrael]

People often debate whether Stonetalon Garrosh and MoP Garrosh are the same Warchief. Is there something afoot?
How so? He never ordered nukes wasted on civilian targets and still wouldn't. (Source)

It didn't seem he cared if Theramore had civs in ToW.
Theramore completely a military target, more so when the civs have chance to escape. (Source)

aaaand /thread

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BUT BUT GORRRRAASH IS EEEVUL SRSLY GUISE, GUISE PLIES, :"(

[Frolk]

Next we need to bomb Goldshire and Sentinel Hill

[teddytous]

My question is more along these lines:
You've accepted the dragon enslaving Dragonmaw Clan and now you've slain members of the Blue Dragonflight and stolen the Focusing Iris. HOW does the Horde not have the Dragonflights turning against them under Garrosh at this point? There's no real rational explanation short of plot armor.

Hordes been doing nasty things to dragons for years, lil late to get upset now. Have to remember the aspects are severely diminished now, and even if not, dragons don't really believe in retaliation against mortals. They think of mortals as children, to be forgiven for their mistakes and guided towards a better future.

[Dreknar20]

"Rules are for children, the only crime is to lose"

But honestly whenever these topics come up to some degree they seem silly.
The whole point of war is to inflict the maximum amount of losses and destruction upon a people.

So does it really make perfect sense to be all "See those people? Lets cause the most pain, fear, suffering, death, and destruction upon them.........but lets do it nicely"

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I don't see how anyone can say that Theramore was not a good military target to attack and thus weaken the Alliance's growing presence on Kalimdore.

Anything that flies the Alliance flag is a valid target in war. Period.

Any other reason only adds on to that. But thats the only reason you ever need.

[Deleted]

Keep your jingoist bullshit to yourself, this is about WoW.
By your logic OP, then Taurajo wasn't an issue at all.

What issue? Taurajo's civilians were left an opening so they could escape. Some chose to fight, Turns out, fighting an armed and trained soldier with a skinning knife is not a good idea.

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Sissy had nothing to do with it. The USA attacked them conventionally for four years before nuking them. Also, the atomic bomb had never actually been used in war prior to the attacks on Japan. The USA had spent 6 years developing this weapon, and all that money would have gone to waste if they had refrained from using it at that time. Once the world saw how devastating the weapon truly was everyone pretty much agreed not to use it any more. I don't think you can compare the situation in Theramore with the USA bombing Japan in WWII.

Well they could have shown that display of power without nuking two towns full of civilians, now would they?

[Dreknar20]

They were sent in to a fight without need, a fight Garrosh had no intention of concluding.

Them fighting was very much needed.
They served to push the Alliance into the center of the city, and draw off Alliance forces while other teams disabled Alliance air defense and saved their inside man.
Without it the whole dropping of the bomb wouldnt be possible

[Octavius]

Garrosh is a cryin' little coward who freaks out with power. No man who needs to say "I'm the king (warchief)" at any time as he does is a true king. If you justify the nuke on theramore, then you justify nuke war in the real world. Absolutely horrible and psychopath. There's NOTHING that can justify such an act.

[stomination]

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Well they could have shown that display of power without nuking two towns full of civilians, now would they?

There were three plans in taking Japan ( who btw already lost but was commiting suicide runs instead of fighting). Of course we know our plan where we just dropped atomic bombs on towns till they surrendered. Odd how the first one was not enough.

2nd plan was to invade the southern islands. Casualties for just the ally side was estimated in the millions.

The 3rd plan would have used 6-8 nukes before we invaded the southern islands.

[Dreknar20]

If you justify the nuke on theramore, then you justify nuke war in the real world. .

wtf is the difference between dropping one giant bomb or thousands of smaller bombs? Nothing!

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[QUOTE=stomination;21668418]
2nd plan was to invade the southern islands. Casualties for just the ally side was estimated in the millions.
QUOTE]
hell some estimated a million would just be the number of dead

[Octavius]

[QUOTE=Dreknar20;21668460]wtf is the difference between dropping one giant bomb or thousands of smaller bombs? Nothing!

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2nd plan was to invade the southern islands. Casualties for just the ally side was estimated in the millions.
QUOTE]
hell some estimated a million would just be the number of dead

The difference is that with a nuke bomb you can destroy, in wow and in the real world, much more than with thousands of normal bombs. Oh yes I know very well how many losses the USA estimated: operation downfall, 1-2 millions of american soldiers and some millions of nippos. But you can't nuke two cities full of civilians and not valuable military targets, even if you kill "only" 250000 people.

[Deleted]

In battle there is no law. /thread

[Deleted]

These are just some thoughts I had on the matter. Garrosh is a douche, sure, but the attack on Theramore wasn't some monstrosity like people make it sound. It was a battle between two militaries and one of them got blown away. Why the big shock? Someone has to lose...

People just grasp at straws to find a reason to hate Garrosh, that's it. The only bad thing he really did was meddling with the heart of Y'Shaarj and that seems out of character to me, as he doesn't want to have anything to do with demonic powers or warlocks so why would he willingly work with something just as dark or even worse? It doesn't make sense, it's a completely different character who makes that choice. It's as if Blizzard is screaming "please hate him already!" without backing it up with a logical storyline.

I agree that the bombing of Theramore is completely justified, it was a military target and they were at war. Theramore was a threat to Orgrimmar being so close, Garrosh got rid of it with an extremely good plan. The people whining about it are just biased and blame everything on Garrosh.

[Dreknar20]

[QUOTE=Octavius;21668530]

The difference is that with a nuke bomb you can destroy, in wow and in the real world, much more than with thousands of normal bombs.

um so? The whole point of weapons and war itself is to destroy. And the firebombings of Japan did more damage than both nukes combined.

And cities are not valuable in war? Must be why they are always important objectives.
And I dont know about you, but I put the lives of my people waaay above the lives of other people.

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I agree that the bombing of Theramore is completely justified, it was a military target and they were at war.

Everything and anything that is Alliance controlled is a valid target. Period.