Reviewing Monsters: Warcraft III, Humans & Orcs

I'm not sure why it took me this damn long to do one of these for Warcraft III, one of my all-time favourite games. But hey, here's Warcraft III, one of my favourite video games of all time and the thing that ended up solidifying my love for the fantasy genre. And a good chunk of it is the sheer amount of lore and story packed into both the campaign and the manual that came with the game.

With the Warcraft III remake coming at some point in the future, I'll try my best to go through the monsters and general designs of the critters. This will be a three-part series, with the first two dealing with the playable factions (Human, Orc, Undead, Night Elf) and a final one dealing with the random neutral monsters that populate the world of Azeroth. I'm going to go a bit fast with these, talking mostly on the flavour of their design, and less about their lore -- I've talked way too much about Warcraft lore in my Lore of Hearthstone segments, after all. Since this is a decade-old game, I'm going to talk about both the base game, Reign of Chaos, as well as the units introduced in the expansion, The Frozen Throne. Also, I'm going to basically briefly go over campaign-exclusive models like Arthas, Jaina and Malfurion.

HUMAN ALLIANCE
While technically billed as the 'Human' faction, a more accurate label would probably be 'Human Alliance', since it features a coalition of forces of humans, dwarves and high-elves, drawing from the lore established in the two previous Warcraft games. I'm not going to go too in-depth in the mechanics of the game, but basically, in a Warcraft III game, you start off by constructing buildings, gathering resources and training units to fight for you. Stronger units and abilities are unlocked as you progress in making building upgrades and whatnot, and most units tend to have a certain niche in combat.

Peasant (a.k.a. Militia)
"More work?"
So as a real-time strategy game, you have to do a bit of resource management as in any given Warcraft III game mode, be it the multiplayer one or the campaign, you're going to have the "Peasant" equivalent, who just goes around gathering gold, gathering lumber, constructing buildings, and whatnot. For the human forces, this job falls to the humble Peasant, which probably wouldn't be memorable at all if not for the gloriously hammy "ready to work" and "yes, milord" voice clips that play whenever you click on them. Pretty fun, and I've always found it to be a neat thing that these Warcraft games have resource-gathering peasantry as part of the many units they have.

While peasants in the past two Warcraft games have been pretty much just completely useless other than gathering resources, Warcraft III makes it a unique trait for human peasants to be able to temporarily transform into Militia, where they run to the nearest town hall and arm themselves with hammer and shield to help defend their town. A pretty fun flavour!

Footman 
"Ready for action!"

The first combative unit for the humans is the Footman, which is basically a dude in full-plate armour with a sword and shield. Again, a lot of this plays on the fun medieval fantasy vibe, at least on the human side -- from Warcraft II onwards, while the humans still try to play on the middle-ages knights-and-horses feel, the rest of Azeroth have basically embraced a wider range of D&D-inspired madness. The Footman isn't particularly exciting, but it does feel delightfully mundane and a pretty fun basic combat unit for the Alliance. Gameplay-wise, the Footmen are able to research the "Defend" ability, where they are slower, but with their tower shields up they can deflect damage from arrows.

Rifleman
"Locked and loaded!"
The way these models show up and the exaggerated, almost chibi 3D models doesn't make it apparent, but these Riflemen are dwarves. Anyone who's spent any amount of time with fantasy dwarves will quickly realize the thick och-aye accent that these dwarves have. And, well... the dwarves in this setting have basically found gunpowder and have a general steampunk vibe... and I actually do love this side of Warcraft lore. Dwarves tended to be associated with blacksmithing and forging, but who says all that blacksmithing has to result in more axes and swords? If there was a race in fantasyland that's the most likely to come across the engineering leaps needed to essentially invent guns? The Riflemen are a unit that the Human faction gets access too relatively quickly. While a bit more fragile, they're ranged warriors that can shoot both airborne and land units.

Overall, I do like the Rifleman's design. Between the hood-cape deal going on and the chunky blunderbuss, as well as their pretty hilarious voice lines, the Rifleman might probably be my favourite Human unit.

Knight
"For the king!"
You gain access to training Knights in the mid-game and late-game, and they're pretty expensive to make... but they're pretty badass! I've personally never liked using them a lot, but Knights are actually pretty damn powerful. It's just that unlike most other fast-moving mounted units, they are just huge damage-dealers that hit things and deal damage without much tricks, making them a bit boring. I really do like that the artwork for the Knights don't actually make them look stereotypically super-whitebread noble, though, instead giving them huge chunky mustaches and jutting underbites, and a rough accent that doesn't sound too different from the peasants and footmen... but they're still played straight as noble warriors of the Alliance.

Priest
"Is my aid required?"
The previous three units are trained in the "Barracks" building and make up what looks like a general military force, but spellcasters and magicians are just as important in Azeroth! So hailing from the Arcane Sanctum are the elven spellcasters. The high elven Priests basically take the general fantasy of Tolkien-esque elves, except these are more inclined towards magic. Priests are a bit hard to use properly, and most beginner players just have them auto-cast Heal to have them basically heal up all of your other damage-dealing units... but used properly, the Priest unit's other spells include Inner Fire (buffing your knights and gryphon riders into powerhouses) and Dispel Magic (fucks with your enemy's magical effects).

The Priests and Sorceresses apparently swap models between Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne, to show that the elves within the Alliance are no longer High Elves but Blood Elves... but to be honest, I genuinely don't know what they change. The glow of their eyes, and maybe the markings of their clothes, I think?

Sorceress
"Once again, it's up to the elves."
The opposite side of the Priest are the floating sorceresses, which are slightly-haughty master magicians. Unlike the Priest, every single ability in the Sorceress' arsenal are meant to be bully and cripple the enemy. Slow ends up, well, slowing down enemy units, and Polymorph turns them into a goddamn sheep for a limited amount of time. And there's also Invisibility, which sounds awesome but in gameplay is a lot less useful. Design-wise... they're pretty neat. As usual in my monster reviews, I tend to not have too much to say about the design of these more humanoid characters. The sorceress is an elf-lady in magician robes, the priest in an elf-dude in priestly robes. Not much for me to really talk about, design wise.

Spell Breaker
"I thirst for magic."
So the Spell Breaker here is our very first unit from the Frozen Throne expansion. In a neat way of putting story before gameplay, the 'human' campaign in Frozen Throne ends up focusing more on the remnants of the High Elves, whose culture and civilization was utterly wiped out during the course of the Reign of Chaos campaign. Renaming themselves Blood Elves because they have the edgy naming sensibilities of a 90's teenager (and that's not a bad thing), they become the focus of the Frozen Throne human campaign, and one of the units highlighted there is the Spell Breaker.

See, the Blood Elves' whole deal is they become addicted to mana, the lifeblood of magic, and the Spell Breaker's essentially an anti-magic unit. Sure, they look particularly cool with their red-and-gold outfit, their spinning giant shurikens and that awesome big-ass shield, but they're just so primed to fuck with enemy spellcasters. They are straight-up immune to magic, their attacks burn the enemy's mana (flavoured as 'causing the mana to combust') and the two spells they are able to do, "Control Magic" and "Spell Steal" will basically turn any of your enemy's magic-summoned units or magic buffs and debuffs into your favour. In addition to a pretty dang cool design, the Spell Breaker's a pretty damn awesome unit with awesome powers.


Mortar Team
"MORTARRRRR COMBAAAAAT"
The third main troop-producing building for the human faction is the Workshop. Where the Barracks has a fantasy knights-and-castles military vibe, and the Arcane Sanctum makes elven spellcasters, the Worskshop is basically a bunch of crazy dwarves and explosives running around with steampunk inventions. The flavour is that these crazy flying machines and not-quite-tanks were designed in Warcraft II by the combined ingenuity of the dwarves and the gnomes. The gnomes sit out Warcraft III, but the dwarves and the wacky machinery are still around. These all serve as the 'siege' units of the human faction, and like all other siege units, they deal extra damage to buildings, which is important when you start taking the fight to the enemy base.

The Mortar Team is just a bunch of dwarves that lug around a massive cannon, and they shouldn't be interesting at all, but this is a case where their hilarious voice-acting and just the visual image of two dwarves waddling along holding a big fuck-off cannon next to more serious-looking knights and elven sorceresses is just pretty damn funny. Plus, they're pretty damn useful in a fight. Once you get far enough in researching abilities for your units, the Mortar Team ends up getting the ability to shoot Flares... which doesn't just light up an area, but also ends up somehow revealing everything that's invisible. That's right, the power of technology can reveal the wraiths and shadow-melding night elves!

Gyrocopter & Flying Machine
"Roger wilco!"
These two are essentially the same unit, but after you install the Frozen Throne expansion, the Gyrocopter ends up being completely replaced by the Flying Machine, ostensibly representing an in-universe 'upgrade' to the technology in-between the events of Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne. I've always loved the name "Gyrocopter", which has the exact feel of bizarre, potentially explosive steampunk technology that the gnome/dwarf technology has, whereas "Flying Machine" just sounds so mundane, y'know? The Gyrocopter is essentially one of those WWI era planes with a massive helicopter rotor on top, whereas the Flying Machine trades it for two wing-mounted propellers.

It's been some time since I've look at the stat comparisons, but I think the Flying Machine has slightly weaker stats, but is a lot cheaper compared to the Gyrocopter to build, and has the additional 'Flak Cannons' ability, allowing it to essentially shoot multiple flying targets at once, making the Flying Machine a lot more specialized in air-to-air combat. Indeed, one of the weakness of both the Gyrocopter and the Flying Machine is that they are originally useless against land-bound units until you research the technology for them to drop bombs on land.


Steam Tank & Siege Engine
The final thing to roll out of the Human faction's Workshop is the Steam Tank, later replaced with the Siege Engine. Among the four playable factions, humans actually gain access to their 'siege vehicle' the latest, because they get the Mortar Team as a far cheaper option. They both look pretty cool, and I do like just how much they are unmistakably tanks while still looking pretty chunky and weird. The Steam Tank's massive weird locomotive-like shape and the shield-skirt thing, or the gigantic steam-roller on the front part of the Siege Engine both look ridiculously wacky, and I'm a huge fan of how they keep puffing out smoke as they clatter across the battlefield. The Siege Engine, unlike the Steam Tank, is able to gain upgrades to allow it to shoot airborne units.

I absolutely love this. In previous Warcraft games, the humans only had catapults. Now they have steam-powered tanks that launch cannonballs at enemy fortifications, it's glorious.

Gryphon Rider
"It's hammer time!"
Each faction also has a slightly more expensive building that ends up summoning an expensive but powerful unit, and three out of four of these powerful units are airborne. For humans, it's the Gryphon Rider, which is pretty dang sweet! These dwarves ride the gryphons into combat and the way that WoW dwarves fight (when they're not relying on steampunk explosives) are essentially a big fat homage to Thor, and every single Gryphon Rider is armed with a seemingly endless supply of Stormhammers, which, yeah, are basically Mjolnir expies that can 'jump' from one target to the next.

The Gryphon Riders are pretty damn awesome. They don't quite have the sheer impact that some of the other late-game units like Frost Wyrms or Chimeras have, perhaps, but a squad of them against the right sort of enemies can really wreck the enemy's shit... and besides, as one of the more powerful units of the humans, a squad of gryphon riders is definitely pretty dang awesome!

Dragonhawk Rider
"They all shall burn."
Our last troop unit is the Dragonhawk Rider, introduced in the Frozen Throne expansion as a counterpart to the Gryphon Rider. Unlike most of the expansion units, however, the Dragonhawk Rider was actually a campaign-exclusive enemy unit before being promoted to part of the playable roster. Where the Gryphon Riders are basically a hammer to hit your enemy with, the Dragonhawk Rider is all about spells. They can create massive clouds to stop enemy buildings from attacking (and enemy 'tower' buildings are definitely an important part of Warcraft gameplay), or throw aerial shackles to bind enemy aerial units.

Design wise, they're neat -- it's a blood elf riding on a giant hawk. The Dragonhawk design looks relatively mundane, just being a big bird (and they would change dragonhawks significantly in World of Warcraft to look far more exotic and bizarre), but the idea of a bunch of cavalry troopers riding giant birds into combat is pretty awesome.


Paladin
"I am not afraid."
And here we come to the Hero units. Hero units are... well, they're the new huge introduction to Warcraft III, essentially acting as the mightiest heroes and characters in your campaign or game. They all level up and grow stronger with experience points, they each have four abilities, and when they die you can resurrect them in the altar in your base. Essentially, in D&D terms, these are the Player Characters. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that in Warcraft III, these heroes are the ones that turn the tide of battles and wars.

The Human alliance's main hero is the Paladin, a holy warrior with a funky cape and a massive two-handed hammer. Of course, both Arthas and Uther Lightbringer, main characters of the human campaign, are Paladins. They're holy warriors of the light, and they are tanky support heroes. A paladin's first ability, Holy Light, either heals your allies, or damages undead monsters and demons. Divine Shield turns them into tanks and essentially makes them completely immune against most physical attacks and magic. Devotion Aura allows every single unit around the Paladin to get buffs, and the Paladin's fourth and ultimate ability is Resurrection, where as long as there are corpses of the creatures around the Paladin (so no resurrecting Steam Tanks, Flying Machines... or Gryphon Riders, whose body explodes mid-air), he can bring them all straight-up back to life. Overall, the Paladin's a pretty awesomely-flavoured warrior of truth and justice, just like the original holy warrior/crusader fantasy they're based on.

Some heroes get 'unique' models to mark that they are super-special awesome, so the main character of one of the first campaigns, the human one, gets Prince Arthas Menethil, our main character, who gets a unique model with long white hair and a far more youthful look compared to his older, bearded ilk. A pretty interesting thing to make some of the main characters look distinct and unique. Arthas isn't the most novel character design, but making him distinct does go a long way at making him feel special compared to the other Paladins you encounter in the multiplayer maps.


Archmage
"Do you require my assistance?"
Another popular human heor archetype, of course, is the Archmage, which is obviously a nod to good old Gandalf, the original fantasy wizard. And, well, these archmagi are bearded old wizards mounted on steeds (supposedly unicorns, according to the guidebook, but the model's a regular horse), holding glowing staves. It's a pretty simple and cool look overall, and as someone who's always loved to play the wizards and sorcerers in a game, the Archmage tended to be the hero I gravitate towards when I play human.

The Archmage's bread-and-butter spell is Blizzard, which, well, summons a blizzard! When applied properly it can seriously fuck up entire advancing armies while your other units take potshots at the frozen and slowed enemy forces. The Archmage's second skill is the Water Elemental, where they just summon this massive hulking brute made out of water to help bash people. Brilliance Aura allows the Archmage to buff fellow spellcasters (not quite as useful, I find), and most interesting is the Archmage's ultimate skill, Mass Teleport, which allows the Archmage to move an entire army into another part of the map. All it need is you sending a single Gryphon Rider or invisible Sorceress close enough to your enemy's camp, and then the Archmage can drop half of your army there and start wrecking havoc! Overall, a pretty fun set of powers.

The campaign version of the Archmage is perhaps one of the two most drastic changes, with Jaina Proudmoore being a young girl with a hood and no horse, instead of an old man on a mounted horse. Jaina's a pretty cool character and while it's a bit hard to tell with the low-resolution polygons, her mage armour does look great when it's finally properly rendered in decent resolution in WoW. I did always find that it's very interesting that compared to all the other unique campaign heroes, the Archmage equivalent looked so dang different.


Mountain King
"For Khaz Modan!"
It's always kind of boring to look at the three base Human-faction heroes and see that they're all just bearded men, yeah? But hey, at least they look pretty cool. The Mountain King represents the dwarves, and, well, is yet another unit that's visually inspired by Tolkien's work. Where the Paladin sort of is the 'cleric' among the human heroes, and both the Archmage and the Blood Mage are obviously the 'wizard', the Mountain King is the 'fighter'. It's a powerful melee unit that just tanks and deals damage and just wrecks your enemy's shit.

Their abilities all center around dealing damage. Storm Bolt is a one-shot ranged attack; Thunder Clap allows the Mountain King to unleash an AoE blast, Bash is a passive that allows the Mountain King's attacks a chance to stun, and his ultimate ability, Avatar, allows it to grow into a rocky form that makes them even more tankier and straight-up immune to spells. Basically, every single ability the Mountain King has makes it bash the enemy's face better. Pretty cool, and the visual look of a bearded viking dwarf with a hammer and axe is definitely awesome.


Blood Mage
"I'm here, mortal."

The high/blood elves did get a raw deal in the original Warcraft III, huh? They only got two spellcaster units as representatives, while everything else were humans and dwarves. Hell, they don't even get to become one of the human faction's heroes, and despite the two spellcasting units being elves, the Archmages were explicitly human. Frozen Throne would add the Blood Mage hero, which is a lot more... angry and burn-y with his spells, and basically exemplifies all the magic-eating/magic-master flavour of the blood elves.

The Blood Mage's first skill, Flame Strike, is just a massive explosion of flame in an area. His second and third skill, though, is a lot more... assholish and are meant to disable and inconvenience. Banish essentially disables 'simple' units like Knights and Tauren, causing them to be shunted to another dimension where they can't attack, but take extra damage from the Blood Mage's other spells. Siphon Mana allows the Blood Mage to drain and steal mana from an enemy, to fuck up enemy spellcasters. The Blood Mage's ultimate, the Phoenix, summons... well, a phoenix! It's a burning bird that can attack enemies, and when it dies, it becomes an egg that, if not destroyed in time, gives birth to another phoenix. I do really like the contrast compared to the Archmage, which felt more straightforward in a lot of its abilities. That's a pretty neat cloak the Blood Mage has.
_________________________________________

ORC HORDE

In the original two Warcraft games, the Horde was your typical band of evil chaotic monsters. They burn, pillage and murder their way through Azeroth as they pour across a portal from another dimension, riding wolves, casting curses and generally allying themselves with the monstrous ogres, trolls, goblins and evil dragons of the land. Warcraft III ended up picking both the undead and the demons as the main villains, and ended up highlighting the orcs of the Horde -- these are the descendants of the original always-evil orcs, and some of them just want a place to call their own. It's one of the best writing ever to give these orcs a pretty sympathetic storyline that extends beyond just "grr grr murder kill", and eventually fight against the demonic curse that was the reason for their race-wide bloodlust. And while some would argue that they went a bit too far in making the orcs relatable and nice, they're still pretty warlike and still pretty happy to solve problems with violence.


Peon
"Work work."
The Warcraft franchise, I would say, is perhaps the one that ended up solidifying the image of orcs in the general pop culture as being tusked green-skinned monstrous humanoids as opposed to pig-men. And all the orcs basically look like this in Warcraft, although the Peons have a pretty different looking set of tusks that look smaller and less threatening compared to the other orcs.

There's really not a whole ton to say about the Peons. They have the most adorable "werk werk werk, okie dokie" voice. While they can't actually transform into battle-ready militiae like the human peasants, the orc peons are actually able to hide inside their Orc Burrows and stab enemies from within. 

Grunt
"Lok'tar!"
The Grunt is the orc faction's response to the Footman, being the simple melee unit that doesn't really have a whole lot of fanfare to it. It's just a muscly orc warrior dude with a furry viking hat (which is neat) and an ax. Like the Footman, they're basically here to show off what the basic flavour of orc looks like, and, well, it's big, green, mean and angry. Also like the Footman, the voice actor that voices the grunt clearly had a lot of fun. The Grunt's 'ability' is actually more of a passive research that increases their hit points and damage. Also, all orcs can eventually obtain the 'pillage' ability, allowing them to gain resources by attacking buildings, because, well, orcs are all about raiding and pillaging, right?


Troll Headhunter & Troll Berserker

"Taz'dingo!"

Like the Human faction, the Orc faction isn't all made up of orcs, but they also have a bunch of other races. One of the most faithful ones are, of course, the blue-skinned Darkspear trolls. And I really do find the depiction of trolls by Warcraft to be pretty interesting. Most troll depictions tended to turn them into another flavour of ogre or giant, being brutish, dumb and giant... but Warcraft instead turned them into essentially the rivals to elves, making them gangly and giving them a 'tribal warrior' vibe, with a culture that tended to revolve around voodoo magic and general hunting. They also have a gloriously charming Jamaican-inspired accent.

Anyway, the Troll Headhunters are pretty neat. They chuck spears at people's faces, and serve as essentially the ranged unit for the Horde. Where all the orc units gain "Pillage" if you research them, the troll units of the Horde gain "troll regeneration", allowing them to regenerate health and heal from wounds a lot more quickly. In Frozen Throne, Troll Headhunters are able to be upgraded into Troll Berserkers once you do a research, and the Berserkers trade in their pants for loincloths and paint their faces with a full-jaw tattoo, and they have access to the Berserk ability, causing them to attack faster at the price of taking more damage. Very flavourful for the Horde.


Catapult & Demolisher
Y'know, the Horde's catapults might be technically the most boring of the siege engines, but at least the model looks pretty neat, with the two massive horns pointing forwards, the chunky wheels, and the neat animation. It's not the only siege-dealing unit available to the Horde, but it's the only one that's considered a vehicle.

In the Frozen Throne, just like the Gyrocopters and Steam Tanks, all the Catapults were replaced with the Demolishers, which look significantly more impressive. It's still essentially a catapult, but the more orcish-like horn ornaments, the two massive tower-like chimneys, and the more sophisticated-looking launching mechanism does make it look like a far cooler-looking machine of war. The Demolisher has an additional bonus ability of launching oil-coated projectiles, burning the ground where they launch their rocks at. Again, it really fits the general flavour of the orc Horde as, well, perhaps not the most well-organized and more rough-and-tumble, but ultimately still a very functional war machine.


Raider
"Ready to ride."

Moving away from the "Barracks" building, we go into the Bestiary, where the orcs and trolls here are trained to work in conjunction with the massive wild beasts. And one of the orcs' most stalwart companions are the massive wolves, another thing that Warcraft borrows from Tolkienic work. The orc Horde's counterpart to the human knights, being orcs riding big ol' wolves and holding what's essentially a giant kitchen knife. 

The Raiders are pretty cool, and unlike the Knights, they have the ability to Ensnare, which is throwing a net to ground those annoying airborne units for them to slash and hack with their massive cleaver blades. Not a whole ton to really say here -- the Human and Orc factions have a lot of units that just fill in a certain niche, and there's nothing wrong with that. I love their wacky curved-horn helmets. 

Kodo Beast

"Here comes the beast again."

The Kodo Beast are creatures that could be best described as a cross-breed between a rhinoceros and a stegosaurid dinosaur. They're massive beasts of burden that the orcs domesticated, and now serve as war-beasts with massive drums on top, and that, surprisingly, is what the Kodo Beast units are meant to do. Despite being massive war-beasts that look like they could crush houses by charging through them, they're meant to buff allies around them with their war drums, because in combat Kodo Beasts are actually surprisingly pathetic -- although they could be trained to do a Devour attack, where they swallow an enemy unit and just slowly digest and deal damage to them until they die or the Kodo Beast itself is slain. 

The Kodo Beast itself is a pretty cool looking creature, and I've always loved just how bizarre they look (and how appropriate they are for the Horde), but the fac tthat it's such a weird unit with weird abilities in gameplay have always made me like these buggers more than I probably should. The Bestiary building is essentially the counterpart on the orc side for the humans' Workshop, and the orcs basically being far more in tune with animal husbandry and shamanistic magic compared to the humans' more... sterile-and-civilized machines and elven magic is a genuinely neat contrast. 

Wyvern Rider / Wind Rider

"Death from above!"

Originally the "Wyvern Riders", they were renamed into "Wind Riders" eventually. These are the Horde's aerial unit, and are the first orcs that we see wearing the skinned corpse of an animal instead of just horny helmets. This is a neat little stylistic choice to show the orcs returning to shamanistic "live with the land" roots, as they drop a lot of the evil demonic/undead imagery for more natural ones. In this case, covering half of the Wind Rider's face with a skinned eagle head. The Wind Riders ride wyverns, and wyverns in Warcraft lore aren't just dragons with two legs, but rather a bizarre beast that feel more like a weird adaptation of manticore or chimeras, being creatures with a leonine head, horns, and a scorpion-like tail. Unlike the starting airborne units of the other races, the Wind Riders are immediately able to attack both land and air units, and the Wind Rider's bizarre fork-spears would later be able to be upgraded and coated with poison. 

Troll Batrider
"Flames for Zul'jin!"
Our final Bestiary unit is the Troll Batrider, a unit introduced in the Frozen Throne expansion. Of course the crazy trolls go around riding giant chunky furry bats in the same pose that one would ride a surfing board. And the troll batriders are crazy napalm-launching arsonists, as opposed to the more focused-target wind riders. Troll Batriders are able to have the ability to basically kamikaze their way with an ability called unstable concoction, charging and swooping down and blowing themselves up for damage -- an ability usually reserved for goblins in this game -- but their biggest value is their "Liquid Fire" ability. They deal a burning damage to buildings that prevent them from being repaired, essentially making the Troll Batrider a great support unit when you start fighting the enemy base.

And besides, it's a freaking arsonist troll riding a bat. How can you not love this thing?


Shaman

The next flavour-building is the Spirit Lodge, where the shamans of the orcs commune and refine their mastery of natural magic. This is in stark contrast with the orcs of Warcraft I and II, where their equivalent spellcaster building instead trains necromancers and warlocks that practice foul, spooky evil magic. I do love the design of the shaman here, with the massive jutting tusk in the portrait, to the one sole Wolverine claw gauntlet, to the massive white-wolf pelt hoodie.

The flavour of Shamans in Warcraft is a mixture of ancestral worship and communing with the elemental energy of the land. For Shamans, they essentially buff their buddies -- Lightning Shield creates a defensive barrier around their orc buddies, and Bloodlust makes them go crazy with anger and murderous instinct. Hey, just because they don't worship demons anymore doesn't mean they can't indulge in crazy orc berserking, after all!

Troll Witch Doctor

"Someone call for the doctor?"

The troll witch doctors are technically still part of the more-heroic Horde, but they do have the flavour of more sinister curse-based magic. At least from a design standpoint, anyway -- they've got a pile of skulls strapped to their back, and have a gait that looks more like a nasty crone than the more heroic postures of the Shaman or the human-allied spellcasters. But, well, the witch doctors are still nice dudes, as long as you're part of the Horde. They mostly end up just going around putting wards around -- the Sentry Ward allows the Witch Doctor to observe through them; the Stasis Trap is, well, a trap for the enemies; and the Healing Ward heals the Witch Doctor's allies. Again, after all, the reason why a lot of Western culture tends to think that these sort of shamans and witch doctors are primitive and backwards because they do something different and strange is more out of ignorance and a sense of superiority, and I do like that the Troll Witch Doctor, described as 'savage' and 'dastardly', are actually almost purely support units, mostly serving as healers and spies. 

Spirit Walker:
"I am one with the earth."
The final spirit lodge unit is the Spirit Walker, a member of the Tauren race which definitely got the short end of the stick among the Horde races in Warcraft III. The expansion added the Spirit Walker as a Tauren spellcaster, to even out the amount of Tauren representation among the units, and these Spirit Walkers look distinctly different, with a bluish-white body and going around carrying a weird lantern as opposed to the massive warlike weapons that the other Tauren units have. The Spirit Walkers are flavoured as essentially albino Tauren that are born and given special spiritual training because their unique colouration is treated as a fateful sign.

Spirit Walkers basically embody another one of those slightly-complex spellcaster units, and they manipulate the spirits to assist their allies. Their Ethereal Form ability works somewhat similarly to the Blood Mage's Banish, but instead, the Spirit Walker willingly enters an ethereal form, where it can cast spells while not taking physical damage. This albino cow-man can use Spirit Link to distribute the pain a group of allies take, Disenchant as a debuff-removing ability, and Ancestral Spirit is a neat, flavourful ability where the Spirit Walker specifically resurrects another Tauren -- and only Tauren -- by praying to their ancestors.

Tauren

"May my ancestors watch over me."

The 'big unit' for the Horde is the Tauren, which are basically minotaurs. But where minotaurs in most fiction tend to be depicted as giant, angry bull-men that rampage around and murder people (and honestly, judging by the icons in Warcraft III, the art team intended for the Tauren to look scary as well), but in Warcraft III, the Tauren are essentially stand-ins for the peaceful Native American culture, being welcoming members of Kalimdor that practice ancestral worship and never fight unless threatened. When they are, though, they wade into battle carrying totems larger than a regular man and bash people in the face with them. The Tauren is a pretty simple unit, being melee fighters with an additional Pulverize AoE ability, but being a massive pile of stats means that they're great recipients for any buffs that your Shamans and Spirit Walkers can throw their way. 

Personally, I've always really enjoyed what Warcraft did with the Tauren. I'm not sure how they are received by actual Native Americans and the like, but I do think that the Blizzard team gave both the trolls and taurens enough of their own identity and portrays them in a consistently positive light. I certainly like them a lot!

Blademaster
"Snatch the pebble from my hand, grasshopper."
The first orc hero is... a samurai? I admit, I am genuinely surprised at why the orc blademaster have such an obviously samurai-inspired look. Carrying a flag, with a monk-bead necklace, a katana, samurai-style skirt armour and even those square sandals, the orcish Blademasters in Warcraft III are given a distinct samurai vibe, which I guess fits into their flavour of a warrior clan that now seek honour above all else.

Their abilities are actually pretty... ninja or monk-like, for sure. Wind Walk is essentially them turning invisible and gaining super-speed. Mirror Image is essentially Kage Bunshin, Critical Strike is a passive ability, and their final ability, Bladestorm, has them spin around like a crazy top to murder everything in their path. Overall, a pretty neat flavour. It might be a bit cheesy, but hey, I always love it when any given setting has a samurai/ninja style class. I just didn't expect it to be the orcs to have them. I do like that the banner on their back is meant to show what clan the particular Blademaster is allied with, even if in practice this doesn't come up all the time.

The main playable Blademaster is Grom Hellscream, a character from Warcraft II, who looked far younger, dropping a lot of the samurai stuff that the regular Blademaster has, not having the beard, and instead just hacking away with a huge axe and having a completely tattoed-over chin. Grom's model isn't one that I particularly liked all that well; he's supposed to be a bit of a quasi-mentor and a big brother figure to the main Horde character, Thrall, but in practice he looks a lot younger. Also, while I show the 'chaos orc'/'fel orc' version here when Grom gets corrupted, you do control him as a green-skinned orc. The expansion would also throw in fel/chaos versions of the regular samurai Blademaster, because, if you can't tell, the game really loves throwing Blademasters as the default orc hero.


Far Seer
"My eyes are open."
The main spellcaster of the orc faction is the Far Seer, essentially a souped-up shaman with a far greater control over their powers. And they ride these majestic huge wolves! Far Seers are able to command the elements of the world, but also predict the future and see across distance, making them spiritual leaders of their people. Thrall's a Far Seer in this game, after all. The Far Seer essentially replace the original orcish Death Knights from WCII as the mounted spellcasters, and the flavour of the Far Seers definitely work well -- you've got skills that allow them unleash massive destruction, and you've got skills that allow them to summon natural spirits, and whatnot.

And, y'know, they are also able to wade into battle and change the tide with their sheer control over the elements. Chain Lightning unleashes a bolt of lightning that jumps around, Feral Spirit summons the spirits of the spirits of the land into ethereal wolves, Far Sight allows the Far Seer to scry across wide distances, and Earthquake basically makes a massive earthquake. A pretty cool spellcaster for sure!

The main Horde hero is Thrall, who gets a unique unit because he's one of the favourite characters of the creative team. Thrall has a black wolf, and is clad in cool black armour and is a lot younger compared to the blind, bearded Far Seers, and waves around a bit hammer that shoots out lightning. Honestly, as far as character designs go, Thrall is cool without doing too much innovation, but sometimes, like Arthas and Jaina above, you don't really have to innovate a whole ton, y'know?


Tauren Chieftain
"For the warchief and the tribes!"
Where the Blademaster is the speedier, trickier melee hero, the Tauren Chieftain, which... essentially is similar to the Mountain King, where it's all about melee attacks. The Tauren Chieftain basically embodies the strength of the Tauren tribes, and I do like the two totems on his back and the braided beard. Not a whole ton to say about the design, it's the big boss among the Tauren.

The Tauren Chieftain's abilities are relatively simple, with War Stomp and Shockwave both dealing damage but in different directions, Endurance Aura increasing the Cheiftain's minions, and the ultimate ability being Reincarnation, bringing the Tauren Chieftain back to full health upon his death. Again, it plays a lot into the ancestral worship theme. Overall, not too much to say here since the Tauren Chieftain's a more intricate version of the basic Tauren.


Shadow Hunter
"Wanna see somethin' real scary?"
The original version of Warcraft III had only orc and tauren heroes, while the base units are dominated by orcs and trolls. Frozen Throne fixes that balance a lot, by adding the support unit that's the Troll Shadow Hunter. Embodying both the voodoo-style spellcasting of the Witch Doctors as well as the tribal hunter vibe of the Headhunters and Berserkers, the Troll Shadow Hunter is kind of the best of both worlds, and I've always found it to be a pretty damn cool hero. They're noted to walk the line between light and shadow as they channel darker magics without succumbing to it, which is a neat little flavour.

The Shadow Hunter is more of a disruptive support hero, with the Shadow Hunter having one of the few healing abilities available to the orcs -- Healing Wave. Hex turns an enemy into a frog, and unlike the Sorceress, the Shadow Hunter is straight-up able to disable an enemy hero with Hex, allowing you to murder their support units while Hex is active. Serpent Ward is perhaps a bit more mundane, just summoning a cobra totem as an additional unit. Big Bad Voodoo, meanwhile, is particularly interesting -- you turn all friendly allies around you invulnerable, but that means that all enemy aggro is turned towards the poor Shadow Hunter himself. A pretty funky set of spells, which fits pretty well with the Shadow Hunter's whole deal of being a wacky manipulator of darker magics.
_____________

And there we have it. I really don't have a whole lot to really talk about, and near the end this review ended up being more descriptive and gushing. But that's mostly because the humans and orcs tended to have... more mundane-looking units? They all look cool and neat. It's not until when we get into the crazy undead units and the night elves' ancients, as well as the neutral, unaligned creatures, that I feel like we're going to have a whole lot to talk about.