Chicken and egg. Varian attacked Barrens/Orgrimaar before the Cataclysm hits. Reason given, because he wants to fight for resources that are scarce after the Cataclysm hits. Either he wanted to just overtly kick their ass (most likely, and perfectly fine, if they'd stop calling it a war over resources), Cataclysm caused it to be a failure, and he should regroup and clear house, or he genuinely is worried over resources in which case being able to use all the arable land in Westfall would be of titanic proportions, drafting the Westfall indigents to military service for Redridge and onward would solve employment problems, and so on. Regardless how you slice it, pushing war against the Horde on Kalimdor is pointless.

The Great Rift defends Theramore from retaliation, so you could easily withdraw back home. Troops caught on the wrong side of the rift still have sea access. Or you could bloody open a mage portal and walk them out. The things are obviously negligible. Moments after Emerine Junis is rescued from days in a prison cell in Stranglethorn she portals out the other prisoners. Shortly after teleports back to the Rebel Camp and proceeds to teleport to your location a few times to interact with you.

Perhaps portals are not used militarily because size limitations (supply wagons, siege weaponry, and so on). For a retreat screw them. Booby trap them and leave them behind.

I'm speaking of Cataclysm questlines in Westfall, et al. The Cata leveling quests in each of those areas all reference requests to Stormwind that have been denied. Instead he's funneling further troops over to Kalimdor to persist in pointless conflict? As for the guys in Deadmines, as far as I could see it was just the troops already in Westfall who were assigned to Lieutenant Horatio Laine.

Varian is reinforcing an arbitrary front line (on Kalimdor) that he himself has created. He's also ignoring repeated requests for aid from local leadership. Either A) he trusts this leadership and should support it, or B) he thinks it's useless and should replace it. There are numerous methods for replacing leadership without overtly replacing it, if there are publicity issues involved (such as advisers who actually wield the power). Or he could temporarily impose martial law (most likely with popular approval, for a time).

As much as I dislike Garrosh, he's individually foolish. Behind the scenes a lot of good government happens in the Horde. Varian is trying to take single-handed control of all Alliance activity, which means a lot is getting ignored.

Not necessarily. The Horde doesn't have many farmable lands to begin with: Durotar is a dry, barren land you can't hope much from, the Barrens are, forgive the pun, barren, Lordaeron is dead, leaving more or less Mulgore as the only place you can really make food grow in.

The Alliance, on the other hand, have Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, Teldrassil, Ashenvale, etc. The Horde having more of a resource problem seems logical to me.

Makes you wonder why they don't put 50mm machine guns on the backs of all Siege Engines haha.

I also get the impression that Varian was lightning quick in getting soldiers sent to Westfall purely because the Defias were involved. Besides orcs and black dragons, they rank up there in the Axis of Evil in Varian's eyes since they had a hand in his kidnapping.

I think we can all agree that the continued drain of Alliance troops in the Barrens is bad, but I still hold that the initial attack was spot on. And while it looks like it is a major failure, on par with the worst, it has actually weakened the Horde significantly.

When Hordies arrive in the Barrens their first real action is against the Razormane Quillboars. Now, they are much like the Gnolls in danger, meaning not great. However the Horde simply doesn't have the troops to handle them, and farms are being attacked, forcing the formers to defend their own houses/huts, even while they are on fire. Heck you even get drafted into riding 'shotgun' (pun intended) on a kodo. Horde caravans are falling like flies to the Razormanes. Now how does that relate to the Alliance? Well, the Razormanes are fleeing from the south. Also Crossroads is barely hanging on, you are basically greeted like a hero for bringing them a single pack kodo with supplies. This is due to Mulgore being cut off.

The Horde supply situation is extremely dire, and it wouldn't take much to topple the entire position in the Barrens. A covert ops strike at the Gold Road would be enough.

If Varian is aware of these developments, then I can understand why he continues to press in the south. He would then know that his own problems are much less significant than those of the Orcs and Tauren. Basically settling for a war of attrition, waiting for the Horde to collapse under the strain of it's weak logistics. But this would only work if the large Horde forces gathered in the south are all kept there, as it wouldn't really take many troops to devastate the Razormanes (one NPC relates to how weakened the Razormanes appeared before, in what can be understood as the results of the old playr actions against them) and the Burning Blade ambushers.
By locking the Horde's hands, they can't scratch the itches.

So either Varian is badly counseled and a really bad strategist, or he is badly counseled and a ruthlessly brilliant strategist. I know that appearances indicates one over the other, but look at how Blizzard has tried to make Garrosh more likeable (though he fails, especially in Stonetalon Mountains, people just don't see his incredible doublestandards and 180), it wouldn't surprise me if Varian is really going to be touted as a mastermind of strategic warfare.

Actually the resources were scarce before the cataclysm. Throughout the shattering we hear of increasing skirmishes and breaches of the treaties down in ashenvale/barrens including two fairly horrific attacks by Orcs first on some sentinels and secondly on a meeting of Tauren and Night Elf druids of which Hamuul Runetotem is the sole survivor (both of these attacks were conducted by the Twilight's Hammer of course, but they are attributed to the orcs by the alliance). Thrall even refuses to condemn the first attack as he says his position (he is still warchief at this point) would be made untenable if he were to criticise such an action when resources are so scarce.

Also of note i thought was that when attacked by the horde an Ashenvale sentinel's first action is to get the next boat to SW to tell Wrynn and request that he do something (essentially). This whole scene struck me as odd as I had always imagined that the night elves would show more independence possibly dealing with it internally and simply sending a report to SW, it seems from my reading of this passage that Varian really is large and in charge as far as any alliance military actions go.

And the Burning Steppes Blackrock forces (which were planning on a full force invasion) and Badlands black dragons are pretty much wiped out thanks to the efforts of the player (similarly, Keeshan wouldn't have done anything if not for the player's intervention).

The issue there is that the orcs and dragons would have been free to invade if the player hadn't been there to help, and they were a problem before the player got there that really could have done with some attention rather than a "never mind the giant Blackrock invasion force in the Burning Steppes, some random adventurer will undoubtedly show up and win the day with some old-fashioned spit and elbow grease."

Ignoring the fact that the player ends up fixing everything, it's absurd for the story to act like that will always be the case.

To be honest, given how powerful Jaina is, I really doubt Varian would try to punish her in anyway (the last time she got mad his ENTIRE army got frozen and ported). If nothing else she might go neutral and end up in Dalaran (She is certainly powerful enough) which would be a HUGE blow to the Alliance.

I feel like the death of Malygos should have a much larger impact in this expansion. I am going to be kinda mad if they gloss over that by saying something like, "well we saved Azuregos and there is Kalec! Thats good enough!" I mean obviously that should not be good enough, so I am interested in seeing what happens with that.

I'm a little confused as to why the Blackrock forces have War Kodos.

The Blackrock clan has universally been a mirror of the "First/Second War" Horde. Orcs didn't employ kodos until they met the Tauren in the Third War. Aside from one mob (Margol the Rager, who is a thunder lizard), there don't seem to be any kodos or thunder lizards all across the Eastern Kingdoms. The Blackrock haven't opened up trade with Thrall's Horde, and don't appear to have any goblin allies (or any allies aside from the ogres and trolls located in BRS and the Black Flight), and have no presence in Kalimdor. So how the hell do they get any kodos to begin with?

On another note, anyone else notice the boatload of new Goblin settlements in odd areas? I'm definitely interested in seeing the long-term affects of the destruction of Kezan, such as learning the fate of the Trade Princes, learning if there are any other cartels aside from Bilgewater, Steamwheedle and the Venture Company attempting to recover... the goblin racial narrative has been made far deeper with Cataclysm, so it's definitely something that warrants examination in the future.

I think the troubles of shipping supplies has been overstated.
We have societies without railways (the tram is somewhat of a special case) or trucks. Overland supplies are handled by carts and packanimals, while over sea it is handled by ships. Sending supplies across the sea, is and was, a lot easier than over land. There is a reason seatrade was (and still is) many times larger than landtrade, even with military interdictions and pirates. The Horde fleets can't blockade Theramore, besides the Forsaken portion (a significant part of it) is engaged elsewhere.
And as I already mentioned, Mulgore has been cut off, save from the air, and that transportation is even worse than over land, the situation is dire as the NPCs mentions. So in transportation, the two sides are pretty much equal, air transport from Mulgore vs sea transport from SW and equal lengths of land transport. However the Alliance doesn't have Razormanes screwing with the supplylines, they all fled north.

A Fabian strategy wouldn't be applicable. In fact it has already failed. By cutting off TB the Alliance has basically made sure the Horde must engage in direct combat if they want to improve the situation. Evading battle would potentially cause a siege of Orgrimmar with a small force as a holding force to keep Mulgore bottled up. Should the main Horde force seek to engage the 'Mulgore Holding Force' it would be equally easy for the Alliance main force to hit the Horde force in the back as it engages.
That is the best case scenario for the Alliance. The more logical one is that they never lay siege to Orgrimmar, but devastate the countryside. Burn down Crossroads and Razor Hill, both relatively weak towns and the scattered farms all positioned within easy striking range of the main roads. Without the farms of both Durotar and the Barrens, the Horde has to rely on pulluted Goblin supplies, or fight tooth and nail in Ashenvale for what they already needed before. Quite simply, the Horde has no more territory to give up for a Fabian strategy.

So the situation in the Barrens will only really change with a major operation of either side (I doubt Blizzard is going to declare victory for one side due to supplies, at best lack of supplies will weaken one side to an attack). Lets see what the Alliance could gain in the EK. Consolidation of Human lands, while troubled they are handling stuff fairly well. Since one hero with some help can basically keep it going the situation isn't all that dire. But of course in peacetimes it would be a major issue. The lines to the north are horribly long, and over land. Over sea is possible but with more risks as the entire Forsaken fleet is ready, now reinforceable by the Orc fleet. A major seabattle is exactly what the attackers would avoid, as even winning the battle could lead to a lack of ships big enough to weaken the supplychain critically.
And there would still be hard fighting that wouldn't even be sure to stop the Forsaken.
So in return for basically handing over all of Kalimdor south of Ashenvale to the Horde, giving a big middle finger to the Nelves, the Alliance would basically only take over New Kargath, Stonard (which they pretty much already do right?) and consolidate the homelands of the Humans and Gnomes/Dwarves.

The Horde lands are better positioned to help each other on the two continents. More or less taking up a position of a strategic plug in the Alliance's bottle. Handing that advantage to them without seriously challenging it would be a blunder.

Alliance can also take over Hillsbrad, WPL (and EPL). However, that seems equally unlikely, as it's very far from any Alliance bastion of power and also right near both the Forsaken capital and Silvermoon City.

The Alliance should also be pretty thankful they're somehow holding on to Arathi Highlands without any major Horde incursion, granted the Highlands are directly in between both the Wildhammer forces and the combined Dark Iron / Ironforge armies.

As far as the Hinterland goes, I have no idea what the quests are like for the Revantusk, but it's clearly under Alliance / Wildhammer controlled, with significant Wildhammer troops, High Elves troops and a few Draenei.

Simply put, while the Alliance lost Andorhal and Hillsbrad/Southshore, their position in Eastern Kingdoms is well-consolidated and fortified for the most part.

Also, Varian might prefer attacking Horde Kalimdor forces than screwing with Forsaken Plague and Val'kyrs.

It's kind of funny that they don't go into that because Lurid's corpse is the thing I'm most interested in.


Anyway, there seems to be a discrepancy in the time line when you look at both sides of the quest chain, as well.

Koltira is taken to the Undercity after you find that Thassarian is missing and the Forsaken take Andorhal. So doesn't that mean Thassarian orders the retreat and says he's going to hunt Sylvanas and save Koltira before Koltira is actually missing?