Based on the previous thread, we've established that any real-life country with a modern military would decimate Middle Earth, the setting of the Lord of the Rings saga. Even when the OP was edited so that it was reduced to a small military force, the military units still had convincing victory arguments.
However, I'm a stubbon fool, so this time I'm pitting your country against a much more powerful and advanced fictional fantasy setting.
The combined armed forces and population of the country you live in*
vs.
The combined armed forces and population of Azeroth**
*Should you live in multiple countries, or consider multiple countires as your homeland, pick one.
**This is the setting of the Warcraft games, including World of Warcraft. Assume the timeframe of the current expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and that Outland, which is technically not a part of Azeroth, is an optional place of conquest.
Scenario:
The country you live in (or call home) is magically transported to Azeroth, just off the coast, drifting as an island somewhere in the ocean. Assume that, despite it being a time of war and conflict between the Alliance and The Horde all over the known realm, all the races and creatures of Azeroth, regardless of how they feel about each other, have decided to unite against you, because of your superior technology or the fact that they just don't like you (as they always seem to be able to do whenever the next worldwide threat surfaces, but never seem to be able to sustain).
Note that your country only has access to technology and resources that it would be capable of sustaining by itself. Now that you exist independently in Azeroth, you're on your own: no calling for international allies, no imports and exports to other countries, and no technology that you wouldn't be able to run unless your utilities and service providers are all available within the country. For example, cellphones would work, for all telecommunication networks exclusive to your country, as would electrical devices, so long as the electricity is produced domestically, cars and planes would only function so long as you had the gasoline to fuel them, etc.
Now, before you cast your vote for your country, consider the following:
Magic:
Unlike Middle Earth, where magic belongs only to a select few beings, nearly every living creature in Azeroth can use magic. The major types of magic in Azeroth include Holy magic (healing, protection), Arcane magic (various spells and teleportation), Elemental magic (earth, fire, water and air) and Shadow magic (necromancy and possession). Holy magic makes their medics better than what most hospitals and modern medicine can provide. Arcane magic gives them instant mobility and transportation, as well as the ability to turn opponents into animals. Elemental magic means that the powers of the earth will be at their side. Lastly, Shadow magic means we have to contend with the fact that every loss on our end is another opponent we would need to face, as they can raise our dead (and their own) as zombies to fight for them a second time. The mythical and magical creatures of Azeroth are also much more prevalent and better defined, consisting of living things much more dangerous than in our own world. Thus, the magic of Azeroth is far more widespread and easy to access among its citizens than the magic of Middle Earth.
Size:
Unlike Middle Earth, whose population is projected as less than 1,000,000 and is one continental land mass, Azeroth is much larger in both areas. Azeroth spans four continents (five if you count Outland, but that's technically not on the planet anymore), and the Alliance and the Horde alone have a lore-projected total population of around 6 million, but that's not counting the NPCs, mobs, spawns, monsters and the other sentient races of Azeroth, and those vastly outnumber the two factions, leading to be at least 20-30 million. If we go into high values (that is, the total number of characters possible across all accounts in World Of Warcraft), the number approaches the hundred thousands, as around 10-12 million total subscribers multipled by the maximum of 50 characters, per account, across all realms, puts the number at 500-600 million, without counting the other races outside of the Alliance and the Horde. Also, because Azeroth is always in a state of war, they have fully mobilized armies ready to fight at any given time. Thus, Azeroth's size is considerably more intimidating than Middle Earth.
Logistics:
As I pointed out in the previous thread, your country will still have to cope with the logistics and acquisition of resources that you need in order to be able to wage war, since transportation to this world cuts you off from global trade and other sources of food, medicine and technology. Your country still needs to contend with these issues during the battle with the entire planet.
How does your country fare in this battle?
P.S. If this match is still imbalanced, I'm reducing it to the elite military unit scenario, just like the last thread. This time, however, I think it won't be necessary.
I participate yearly in a survival challenge in which I am dropped off in the wilderness with 1 days rations, a knife, and no other supplies, and have to find my way home. This is typically several weeks hiking from civilization.
I have personally killed several bears in the course of this challenge, with the use of snares and other traps.
Azeroth is clearly well-prepared, and I see this ultimately being a battle of magic vs. machines. We have deadly weapons meant for instant kills and maims. We also have the largest military budget in the world by far. I see this as a battle of resources - if we couldn't wipe them out quickly through standard warfare, we would resort to nukes and biochemical warfare - napalm, anthrax, etc. Azeroth hasn't seen our diseases, I would presume. While I think it would come down to desperation due to supplies dwindling (because anyone in America knows our bureaucrats are useless and slow when it comes to decision-making), we would ultimately conquer Azeroth and reverse-engineer their creatures so as to discover the root of their magic.
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I say Tie, through diplomacy, they have humans we have humans, I think we could work out some mutaual alliance between us, (perticuarly if we could reignight their hatred of the hoard which with projection tech we may be able to do. They have wicked mobility, we have a "end of the world button" in the end, we agree mutual assured destruction is our order of peace.
If we had to go to war. Countries with no nukes would not stand a chance. Such as my country (Australia).
The Azeroth tech is not that bad. They've already invented guns, bombs, rocket launchers and even planes capable of bombing runs.
They have much more man power, their individual soldiers are much greater strength-wise and endurance wise. Each of them is like a freaking certified EMT with mastery first aid skills as well as the ability to survive in the wild hunting and gathering indefinitely.
They're alot more advanced than us in a lot of areas, including robotics, force field technology, teleportation possibly even in the air( giant floating fortresses anyone?)
Their engineers seems alot smarter in all areas except computers. I have no doubt that the Goblins from Gadgetzan, or Tinkertown or Area 52 can take an assault rifle, reverse engineer it, make it better and start mass producing it by the end of the week.
They have vastly superior sea mobility as well due to entire civilized races that live and fight under water.
Not to mention magic, tons of tons of magic. As well as the ability to raise dead troops to keep fighting.
The only way I see a country winning this is nuking all the research/command cities/armies, and hope you have enough troops left over to bash the remaining into submission.
Azeroth is clearly well-prepared, and I see this ultimately being a battle of magic vs. machines.
Agree with this. Azeroth's tech is clearly superior to Middle Earth, but it is no match for modern military tech.
WoW's tech is something akin to the Industrial era. The gap between industrial level military tech (thinking tanks and aircraft here) and modern is a huge one.
-In a documented battle during the 1991 gulf war, M1 Tanks were able to destroy seven T-72 tanks, with no losses. These tanks were roughly from the same "generation" of tank technology. Now imagine, pitting modern armor against this:
Looks fairly gnome-ish, and wouldn't stand a chance.
In terms of air power, I actually think Azeroth's dragons would be more effective than Azeroth's mechanical air power. If Azerothian air power is akin to World War I tech, their aircraft will be shot down without ever seeing the opposition, not only by modern aircraft, but also by vehicle mounted and shoulder mounted anti-aircraft weapons. Azeroth may as well not have air power (unless you count the dragons).
With all that said, Azeroth's magic certainly cannot be overlooked. Among other things, their magic gives them the ability to create food (a huge benefit in military logistics), safely gather intel, heal, resurrect the dead, improve allied fighting ability, protect allies...oh yeah...and blow stuff up
Perhaps most importantly, Azerothian magic can cause enemy forces to break morale and flee, and rally allied forces to continue fighting.
And, that's just dealing with rank-and-file magic.
I haven't voted on this one yet, as I'm not entirely sure which way it would go. I'm leaning toward the US military (especially considering that the US military probably equals or exceeds Azeroth's entire population), but want to see more discussion first.
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One thing to note, Azeroth may consist of several “continents”, but its actual physical size is estimated to be around 20 square miles at the low end and 40 square miles at the high end (for a practical comparison, run from Sen’Jin Village to Ogrimar and time how long it takes you. Assume your toon is marathon-level fit and can run a mile in about 4.8 minutes. Then use that unit to measure the continents). Azeroth is not very big and modern air, land, and sea power would be able to react to conflicts anywhere on any continent within minutes or even seconds.
The “population” of Azeroth is spread over hundreds of servers that are essentially islands unto themselves. If you were to squish all 6 million WoW players onto one server you’d have the population density two to four times that of Manhattan Island. While that might sound like an asset, it’s actually quite a severe liability. Enormous swathes of the population can be decimated by conventional warfare… and unconventional warfare like nuclear weapons would basically obliterate the entire world. Biological weapons would also be unimaginably more devastating (Corrupted Blood plague would be about one hundred times more contagious and deadly). What’s more, resource scarcity would also impact the war effort. If 6 million WoW players are after the same herbs to make the same mana and healing potions, suddenly there simply isn’t enough to go around. Bullets and arrows run short, resources to repair armor and weapons become scarce.
World of warcraft battles are fought in a mythic setting using mediaeval tactics. While there is magic involved, your average warrior and hunter without powerful magical spell abilities stands on roughly equal footing with your average mage, warlock, and priest. I can’t recall anything in WoW that leads me to believe that the inhabitants of Azeroth could deal with a single M1A1 Abrams tank, A10 Thunderbold fighter jet, B-52 Stratafortress bomber, or UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter – let alone an entire squadron or company of such war machines.
And raid strategy doesn’t really apply. You can’t have your tanks taunt a Black Hawk helicopter on the ground while your healers keep them alive and the DPS burns the mob down. Unlike the dragons in Azeroth, helicopters spend the vast majority of their time fighting in the air blasting things to oblivion well out of reach of reprisal.
I think almost any modern army on earth would have little trouble dispatching the entire world of Azeroth. The time and resource investment would be negligible.
There's some things that we need to know about Azerothian capabilities, like the actual range and rate of fire of battle magic. Because if it's really "slower and shorter than a five-year-old can throw a baseball" like it appears to be in the game, they're screwed no matter what they can do in theory.
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Ok, you can nuke Azeroth, obliterating all life forms in a blink of an eye - then server reset and all goes back normal as it were before, but now you don't have any more nukes. I will even say that most of paladins will survive impact - due divine shield
In Azeroth you can live without food, even so you can gather resorces from one place every 3-5 min. In real life you can do it once or twice a year. Even USA will not have enough food without international trade.
I will tell you again about equipment. You can see that lvl 1 hero can sustain few arrow shoots, or slashes. A 90 lvl hero can swim in lava of molten core without losing life or while few polar bears attacks you, you can simply sit fishing auto dodge all attacks. Nevertheless they can jump higher then their haight is, they will never lose stamina. If you kill any of hero, he or she will ressurect after 1 minute. So how many bullets do you have?
What about invisibility, changing people to sheeps, fear, teleporting.
Ever watched any zombie film? Thats what will happen.
I am not sure if any country can kill kraken or a deathwing.
Ok these arguments are nonsense. Yes, there are lots of crazy powers, but if you're talking about it as a real place some things (IE auto resurection) are obviously game mechanics, not "azeroth is real" mechanics. Otherwise obviously any country can win, by blowing up blizzard HQ and destroying all the servers. Job done!
Daft arguments aside, I think most countries could beat Azeroth.
If their air defence is roughly WWI era, it might as well not exist. Even just looking at the second world war, late war fighters VS early war fighters you would take odds of dozens to one or more; the only difficulty was going slowly enough. But something like a flying fortress is essentially impossible to stop; it's a lot higher than, probably, the azeroth forces can stop.
Obviously judging the relative lethality - especially of the uber-boss creatures - is hard. But even the Australian armed forces would have a pretty good shot.
In terms of resources - I think people underestimate how quickly a modern military could destroy a country with how few resources if there was the will to do so, and no internal or international backlash. In a do or die situation, there is a *lot* of damage that can be done.
And that is without employing NBC weapons; something like a nuke, or VX gas, or various weaponized plagues are going to be damn hard to stop.
If their air defence is roughly WWI era, it might as well not exist. Even just looking at the second world war, late war fighters VS early war fighters you would take odds of dozens to one or more; the only difficulty was going slowly enough. But something like a flying fortress is essentially impossible to stop; it's a lot higher than, probably, the azeroth forces can stop.
Nope, think higher. I honestly don't think a WWI era force could make any combat kills vs a modern air force, they are vastly outmaneuvered, outranged, outgunned...
edit: misread your post, my bad. All the same, I'll keep the rest of my thread here for funzies
For reference, simulated (actual flying but no live weapons) dog fights between the F-22 and Gen 4 fighters (F-15, F-16) resulted in a 144-0 kill ratio favoring the F-22. Imagine what that gap would look like between an F-22 and a Biplane.
If you'd prefer actual combat numbers, U.S pilots had an 8:1 kill ratio vs slightly older russian planes, during the latter half of the Vietnam war.
Modern aircraft will be able to detect and fire upon Azerothian planes from 100 miles away, easily beyond the visual and combat ranges of anything Azeroth can muster.
In hand to hand it seems WoW has a huge advantage. All they need is a mage casting mass invisibility or a warlock summoning a raid into somewhere and they could cause mass chaos.
But the whole talk was something like: country is magicly teleported into azeroth, not azeroth becomes real. Just read the feedback.
So you cant bomb blizzard HQ, couse you cant interract with it. I suppose that even if you people use something broken, they will get banned or at least balance patch will be created.
So my arguments are quite accurate.
Edit:
I haven't considered that, but all gps, satelites, telecomunication, internet etc. won't work in Azeroth.
I looked at the issue from the perspective that Azeroth were a real country that can be interacted with. If you take the perspective that a country is teleported into a Blizzard server, and subject to server resets and bug fixes, than you have many MANY broader issues than who will win in a fight…
There is no gravity in Azeroth. There only appears to be because geometric representations of objects we identify with (humans, Minotaur’s etc.) are locked to other geometric objects (ground, water) with mathematical rules that do not translate into real world physics – they only appear to. Neither worlds “physics” apply to one another so neither would be able to interact with the other. Bullets pass through faces connected by vertexes. Vertexes that represent an arrow, pass through physical objects because they have no actual mass.
There is also no air in Azeroth. All living creatures would suffocate and die. There only appears to be air because your characters don’t breathe but when they enter into an “airless” environment they get a timer that tells them how long they can survive.
There is no real-world equivalent to hit points, stats, armor, etc. If the issues of air and physics were to be resolved, the entities in each world still do not share a common behavioral language. If I put on my best shirt my strength and agility doesn’t somehow get increased. If I shoot you with a gun, you die… you don’t get a certain number of hit points knocked off your total. If I mine a copper vein, that copper vein is gone for good… it doesn’t magically re-materialize after a certain amount of time. If I kill all the boars in The Barrens than they are dead forever… and there is not a .000001% chance of getting a magical weapon off a boar corpse. There is a 0% chance of getting ANYTHING off a boar corpse. Real boars do not just tote around healing potions and bolts of cloth etc.
The list is endless. The language of the two worlds is incompatible so you have to compromise Azeroth to facsimile the real world – not the other way around. This will be a much better exercise if you assume Azeroth is a real place and we can interact with it… AND it is subject to the same laws the real world is. No server resets, no bug fixes.
You only live once (twice, if you're undead), but assuming you're killed both times, that's it.
Azeroth is much bigger than the scale used to represent it in WoW, or even the scale in the strategy games (Deathwing, for example, should be much, much larger than how he's represented in game; this only slides because Aspects can change their size and shape)
Characters never lose stamina nor need to eat because that's a staple in most video games (except Adventure Island and a few others)
Spells move slower than the naked eye because DPS needs to be calculable.
The list goes on. The point is, while Azeroth is represented through video games, let's not try to apply video game logic to the match. It will make our heads spin.
That said, I'm still waiting for someone from a tiny state to speak up. I'm still wary of my current residence (Austria) being able to take Azeroth on, and even moreso of my other homeland (the Philippines). I still dont think either has much of a chance.
I participate yearly in a survival challenge in which I am dropped off in the wilderness with 1 days rations, a knife, and no other supplies, and have to find my way home. This is typically several weeks hiking from civilization.
I have personally killed several bears in the course of this challenge, with the use of snares and other traps.
Being from the USA, I would say that we would win in a battle against azeroth. Our Military and resources are large enough to be able to put a hurting on azeroth in many cases before they knew what hit them. Other, smaller countries, without as strong of a military are going to have a much harder time though.
You only live once (twice, if you're undead), but assuming you're killed both times, that's it.
Azeroth is much bigger than the scale used to represent it in WoW, or even the scale in the strategy games (Deathwing, for example, should be much, much larger than how he's represented in game; this only slides because Aspects can change their size and shape)
Characters never lose stamina nor need to eat because that's a staple in most video games (except Adventure Island and a few others)
Spells move slower than the naked eye because DPS needs to be calculable.
The list goes on. The point is, while Azeroth is represented through video games, let's not try to apply video game logic to the match. It will make our heads spin.
That said, I'm still waiting for someone from a tiny state to speak up. I'm still wary of my current residence (Austria) being able to take Azeroth on, and even moreso of my other homeland (the Philippines). I still dont think either has much of a chance.
Azeroth's nonmagical capabilities are not significantly better than Middle-Earth's; early firearms might as well not exist for all the good they'll do, and as scary as some of the monsters are, they demonstrably can all be taken down with swords and arrows*, and thus will not be much of a match for .50 bullets. So everything depends on the "real" capabilities of magic. How many mages are available? Does every mage know every spell, or are they more specialized and/or stratified? Can they throw fireballs farther than an assault rifle can throw a bullet? How accurately? How often? What can a fireball to to hardened targets - is it like a gasoline explosion, or napalm, or a shaped charge? How often can they cast invisibility? How long does invisibility last? Do invisible creatures still radiate in the infrared? What are the actual mechanics of teleportation and gating? What's the range on the Eye of Kilrogg and other clairvoyance magic? Can a mana shield stop a sniper's round to the temple? Is there anything in the magical arsenal that can mess with helicopters and aircraft, bearing in mind their speed, range, and modern all-weather capabilities?
*Even ghosts, for some reason. If this were D&D, the moderns might have a big problem with incorporeal undead.
Azeroth's nonmagical capabilities are not significantly better than Middle-Earth's; early firearms might as well not exist for all the good they'll do, and as scary as some of the monsters are, they demonstrably can all be taken down with swords and arrows*, and thus will not be much of a match for .50 bullets. So everything depends on the "real" capabilities of magic. How many mages are available? Does every mage know every spell, or are they more specialized and/or stratified? Can they throw fireballs farther than an assault rifle can throw a bullet? How accurately? How often? What can a fireball to to hardened targets - is it like a gasoline explosion, or napalm, or a shaped charge? How often can they cast invisibility? How long does invisibility last? Do invisible creatures still radiate in the infrared? What are the actual mechanics of teleportation and gating? What's the range on the Eye of Kilrogg and other clairvoyance magic? Can a mana shield stop a sniper's round to the temple? Is there anything in the magical arsenal that can mess with helicopters and aircraft, bearing in mind their speed, range, and modern all-weather capabilities?
*Even ghosts, for some reason. If this were D&D, the moderns might have a big problem with incorporeal undead.
on modern world VS incorporeal undead: Explosions would (probably) be able to damage them - fireballs can, after all (although it's unclear if that is because of the explosiveness or the magicness and you do still have a miss-chance).
Still, modern nation - or whole world - vs a handful of shadows? the shadows (or other reproduction-by-killing incorporeal undead) are probably conquring the world in short order.
That said, I'm still waiting for someone from a tiny state to speak up. I'm still wary of my current residence (Austria) being able to take Azeroth on, and even moreso of my other homeland (the Philippines). I still dont think either has much of a chance.
An Alliance and Horde embassey is totally what we need in Geneva.
I assume we'll just go under 'not interesting enough to invade'. Or see how far we get with diplomacy.
An Alliance and Horde embassey is totally what we need in Geneva.
I assume we'll just go under 'not interesting enough to invade'. Or see how far we get with diplomacy.
This is really funny. I'd like to see how the UN Office would react to Azeroth.
Though hang on, your country is really mountainous, heavily fortified, holds vast amounts of monetary wealth (which should be interesting to the Alliance and the Horde, at least), and I hear your general civilian population has access to a lot of firepower as well... and your forces guard the Pope!
Plus, you and I are next door neighbors, at least from a country perspective.
I don't know, I'd say Switzerland has a much better fighting chance than Austria.
I participate yearly in a survival challenge in which I am dropped off in the wilderness with 1 days rations, a knife, and no other supplies, and have to find my way home. This is typically several weeks hiking from civilization.
I have personally killed several bears in the course of this challenge, with the use of snares and other traps.
Though hang on, your country is really mountainous, heavily fortified, holds vast amounts of monetary wealth (which should be interesting to the Alliance and the Horde, at least), and I hear your general civilian population has access to a lot of firepower as well... and your forces guard the Pope!
Okay, the firepower definitely is a point in our favour, with all those assault rifles being around - and people are surprisingly good shots thanks to mandatory military service (well, except for me, as I'm short sighted, lack proper 3D vision and can't hit the broad side of a mountain).
Unfortunately, all those mountains don't do much against an invasion from the north - if an enemy is stupid enough to invade across the Alpes, they deserve what they get ...
Wait. Do pope-guards count as paladins in WoW terms?
But we don't even have to use the nukes is the thing:
Oh and your lame pirate ships in darnassus stand no chance against a battalion of naval ships.
Just to give them something to do, we'll bring an old P51 mustang out to embarrass your sad little wooden air ships with balloons made of canvas.
Next up, as we storm the land base of azeroth, you had better find a way for your shadow priests and mages and warlocks to stay permanently invisible or else we'll just snipe them into oblivion.
But that's after we have sent in drones and used our satellite up links to report your entire lay out.
Then there is Napalm, cluster bombs, C4 charges, old school bombing raids, and tanks. That's going to be very difficult to stop.
The U.S. has the green berets, Rangers, SEALs, PJs, CCT, SOWT, Force Recon, Delta, DEVGRU and the 24th STS. Those groups ALONE would destroy Azeroth, and that's without even factoring infantry, artillery, armor, naval and airpower into the equation.
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America would win. War advances our technology each time so fast that Azeroth would have a hard time understanding what was attacking him (advanced AI and nanites).
Since so many in the U.S have arms for just self protection; it would create a well positioned underground army of just non-military citizens. That's why Japan's generals argued for not attacking us directly. Exception was the Allusion islands.
you never count the really powerful being in the world. like the dragon aspects who are as big as the world trade center was or something like that in their real form. how the hell do you expect that some bombers or jets can with vs an object that huge, who can use magic to protect itself and destroys every jet in 1 hit with anything.
how do you expect to win vs beings like the lich king, illidan or all these giants and giant robots out of uldaman and so on. even mal`ganis and all these demons somehow belong to that world and the titans. did you see how big this demon was who attacked the world tree? (forgot the name) he was around the size of a mountain. can use magic and so on. the heroes on azeroth can easily survive giant meteors, fireballs, icespears, hits with swords, guns, bows and so on. and this without getting healed.
how the hell do you expect to beat the dragon aspects who are permantly healed by several thousands of priests and paladins? chemical warfare wouldn be of any use since priests, paladins and so on can heal any desease in a second. or cure poisons.
you cant expect that 1 rocket of a jet can kill 1 dragon in a hit. if you see that those guys can survive hundreds of pure fireballs, gunshots, swordhits, and even bombs from engeneers without even care.
sure the rocket of a modern jet is supposed to outdamage all this, but if you think about all the buffs, healingpower and ressurection magic azeroth has, i dont think any country would stand a chance. even nuking wouldnt help much, since paladins would just use their diving shield and ressurect anyone else after that.
u also need to think that a normal human would instantly die if he would be hit by a chainlightning of a shaman or a fireball of a mage, while the people of azeroth most likely would survive several gunshots without getting healed. and tanks shouldnt be much of a problem for beings like blackwing who are at least as big as a aircraft carrier who can fly and use magic.
i think that even the united states wouldnt stand a chance vs all of azeroth´s combined power.
you never count the really powerful being in the world. like the dragon aspects who are as big as the world trade center was or something like that in their real form.
The World Trade Center? Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you wanted to be persuasive here, shouldn't you have chosen an example building that wasn't brought down by modern technology? Those weren't even actual weapons systems - just commercial aircraft.
the heroes on azeroth can easily survive giant meteors, fireballs, icespears, hits with swords, guns, bows and so on. and this without getting healed.
In the game? Yes. That's so combat will be slow and balanced enough for the players to have fun. You don't see them shrugging off the same kind of punishment in cutscenes or other media that are supposed to be representative of how Azeroth "really" works. Sure, they're heroically tough, but it's Boromir-level tough, not Superman-level tough. If swords and arrows are supposed to be able to bring them down - and they definitely are - then a .50-caliber machine gun will do it much, much faster, and from a much, much greater distance.
how the hell do you expect to beat the dragon aspects who are permantly healed by several thousands of priests and paladins?
Do you really think that there are several thousand high-level priests and paladins on call in Azeroth?
Even if there are, do you really think it's a good idea for them to all cluster exposed in one place against an enemy who can launch an artillery bombardment from over the horizon and sustain it for days?
you cant expect that 1 rocket of a jet can kill 1 dragon in a hit. if you see that those guys can survive hundreds of pure fireballs, gunshots, swordhits, and even bombs from engeneers without even care.
sure the rocket of a modern jet is supposed to outdamage all this...
I'm pretty sure you have no idea just how much more powerful modern high explosives are than black powder. And that's not even the real advantage of the modern force. The advantage is that those missiles are designed to kill targets that are much, much faster and stealthier than a dragon, from a much longer range. Even if the dragon somehow shrugs off the first hit, they can just hit it again. And again. And again.
u also need to think that a normal human would instantly die if he would be hit by a chainlightning of a shaman or a fireball of a mage, while the people of azeroth most likely would survive several gunshots without getting healed.
You see, this gameplay thing, you can't have it both ways. If Azerothian heroes somehow have a WoW-style hitpoint system, where they can soak up lots and lots of damage with no loss of combat ability before suddenly dropping dead at zero, then it stands to reason that they also have WoW-style ranges on their abilities. Which top out at, what, forty yards? Yeah, good luck with that.
More plausibly, since spells like chain lightning and fireball have about the same range as a bow, we can estimate that their "real" range is, like the range of a real longbowman, eighty yards or so aimed, or two to three hundred unaimed. Thing is, modern weaponry can still outdo that easily.
and tanks shouldnt be much of a problem for beings like blackwing who are at least as big as a aircraft carrier who can fly and use magic.
Conventional wisdom is that aircraft carriers are basically big huge expensive sitting ducks if it comes down to a war with another superpower. They're just really useful for fighting enemies who don't have cruise missiles.
Deathwing would not be engaged with tanks. Tanks can't even shoot up. Deathwing would be engaged by air superiority fighters and specialized surface-to-air defenses, which - not to belabor the range point, but it's true - can shoot at him accurately from miles away.
The wild card is his magic. We just don't have an accurate read on what he can really do. If he can do another Cataclysm whenever he wants, then yeah, any modern country is screwed - that's a nuclear bombardment and then some. But that seems more like it was a special one-time deal. So what's in his regular arsenal?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The World Trade Center? Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you wanted to be persuasive here, shouldn't you have chosen an example building that wasn't brought down by modern technology? Those weren't even actual weapons systems - just commercial aircraft.
For stuff like air strikes, artillery and cruise missiles, that mostly just makes him a really big target.
In the game? Yes. That's so combat will be slow and balanced enough for the players to have fun. You don't see them shrugging off the same kind of punishment in cutscenes or other media that are supposed to be representative of how Azeroth "really" works. Sure, they're heroically tough, but it's Boromir-level tough, not Superman-level tough. If swords and arrows are supposed to be able to bring them down - and they definitely are - then a .50-caliber machine gun will do it much, much faster, and from a much, much greater distance.
Do you really think that there are several thousand high-level priests and paladins on call in Azeroth?
Even if there are, do you really think it's a good idea for them to all cluster exposed in one place against an enemy who can launch an artillery bombardment from over the horizon and sustain it for days?
I'm pretty sure you have no idea just how much more powerful modern high explosives are than black powder. And that's not even the real advantage of the modern force. The advantage is that those missiles are designed to kill targets that are much, much faster and stealthier than a dragon, from a much longer range. Even if the dragon somehow shrugs off the first hit, they can just hit it again. And again. And again.
You see, this gameplay thing, you can't have it both ways. If Azerothian heroes somehow have a WoW-style hitpoint system, where they can soak up lots and lots of damage with no loss of combat ability before suddenly dropping dead at zero, then it stands to reason that they also have WoW-style ranges on their abilities. Which top out at, what, forty yards? Yeah, good luck with that.
More plausibly, since spells like chain lightning and fireball have about the same range as a bow, we can estimate that their "real" range is, like the range of a real longbowman, eighty yards or so aimed, or two to three hundred unaimed. Thing is, modern weaponry can still outdo that easily.
Conventional wisdom is that aircraft carriers are basically big huge expensive sitting ducks if it comes down to a war with another superpower. They're just really useful for fighting enemies who don't have cruise missiles.
Deathwing would not be engaged with tanks. Tanks can't even shoot up. Deathwing would be engaged by air superiority fighters and specialized surface-to-air defenses, which - not to belabor the range point, but it's true - can shoot at him accurately from miles away.
The wild card is his magic. We just don't have an accurate read on what he can really do. If he can do another Cataclysm whenever he wants, then yeah, any modern country is screwed - that's a nuclear bombardment and then some. But that seems more like it was a special one-time deal. So what's in his regular arsenal?
The flip side to the range argument is Look how fast they TRAVEL that kind of range? every citizen would be extremely mobile.
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However, I'm a stubbon fool, so this time I'm pitting your country against a much more powerful and advanced fictional fantasy setting.
The combined armed forces and population of the country you live in*
vs.
The combined armed forces and population of Azeroth**
*Should you live in multiple countries, or consider multiple countires as your homeland, pick one.
**This is the setting of the Warcraft games, including World of Warcraft. Assume the timeframe of the current expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and that Outland, which is technically not a part of Azeroth, is an optional place of conquest.
Scenario:
The country you live in (or call home) is magically transported to Azeroth, just off the coast, drifting as an island somewhere in the ocean. Assume that, despite it being a time of war and conflict between the Alliance and The Horde all over the known realm, all the races and creatures of Azeroth, regardless of how they feel about each other, have decided to unite against you, because of your superior technology or the fact that they just don't like you (as they always seem to be able to do whenever the next worldwide threat surfaces, but never seem to be able to sustain).
Note that your country only has access to technology and resources that it would be capable of sustaining by itself. Now that you exist independently in Azeroth, you're on your own: no calling for international allies, no imports and exports to other countries, and no technology that you wouldn't be able to run unless your utilities and service providers are all available within the country. For example, cellphones would work, for all telecommunication networks exclusive to your country, as would electrical devices, so long as the electricity is produced domestically, cars and planes would only function so long as you had the gasoline to fuel them, etc.
Now, before you cast your vote for your country, consider the following:
Technology:
Unlike Middle Earth, which is a fantasy setting set in the High Medieval Period, Azeroth's technology level is much closer to the modern day, roughly equivalent to the first wave of globalization or the age of industrialization. The Dwarves, Goblins and Gnomes have been able to produce guns, cannons, gunships and airships, tanks and other siege weapons, trams, radio and hologram communication and the occasional mecha. They also have access to alien technology, thanks to the Draenei and the Titans. Factoring in magic, they also have giant floating fortresses and other such things. Thus, Azeroth's tech level is several centuries more advanced than Middle Earth's.
Magic:
Unlike Middle Earth, where magic belongs only to a select few beings, nearly every living creature in Azeroth can use magic. The major types of magic in Azeroth include Holy magic (healing, protection), Arcane magic (various spells and teleportation), Elemental magic (earth, fire, water and air) and Shadow magic (necromancy and possession). Holy magic makes their medics better than what most hospitals and modern medicine can provide. Arcane magic gives them instant mobility and transportation, as well as the ability to turn opponents into animals. Elemental magic means that the powers of the earth will be at their side. Lastly, Shadow magic means we have to contend with the fact that every loss on our end is another opponent we would need to face, as they can raise our dead (and their own) as zombies to fight for them a second time. The mythical and magical creatures of Azeroth are also much more prevalent and better defined, consisting of living things much more dangerous than in our own world. Thus, the magic of Azeroth is far more widespread and easy to access among its citizens than the magic of Middle Earth.
Size:
Unlike Middle Earth, whose population is projected as less than 1,000,000 and is one continental land mass, Azeroth is much larger in both areas. Azeroth spans four continents (five if you count Outland, but that's technically not on the planet anymore), and the Alliance and the Horde alone have a lore-projected total population of around 6 million, but that's not counting the NPCs, mobs, spawns, monsters and the other sentient races of Azeroth, and those vastly outnumber the two factions, leading to be at least 20-30 million. If we go into high values (that is, the total number of characters possible across all accounts in World Of Warcraft), the number approaches the hundred thousands, as around 10-12 million total subscribers multipled by the maximum of 50 characters, per account, across all realms, puts the number at 500-600 million, without counting the other races outside of the Alliance and the Horde. Also, because Azeroth is always in a state of war, they have fully mobilized armies ready to fight at any given time. Thus, Azeroth's size is considerably more intimidating than Middle Earth.
Logistics:
As I pointed out in the previous thread, your country will still have to cope with the logistics and acquisition of resources that you need in order to be able to wage war, since transportation to this world cuts you off from global trade and other sources of food, medicine and technology. Your country still needs to contend with these issues during the battle with the entire planet.
How does your country fare in this battle?
P.S. If this match is still imbalanced, I'm reducing it to the elite military unit scenario, just like the last thread. This time, however, I think it won't be necessary.
How well do you do against one?
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The Azeroth tech is not that bad. They've already invented guns, bombs, rocket launchers and even planes capable of bombing runs.
They have much more man power, their individual soldiers are much greater strength-wise and endurance wise. Each of them is like a freaking certified EMT with mastery first aid skills as well as the ability to survive in the wild hunting and gathering indefinitely.
They're alot more advanced than us in a lot of areas, including robotics, force field technology, teleportation possibly even in the air( giant floating fortresses anyone?)
Their engineers seems alot smarter in all areas except computers. I have no doubt that the Goblins from Gadgetzan, or Tinkertown or Area 52 can take an assault rifle, reverse engineer it, make it better and start mass producing it by the end of the week.
They have vastly superior sea mobility as well due to entire civilized races that live and fight under water.
Not to mention magic, tons of tons of magic. As well as the ability to raise dead troops to keep fighting.
The only way I see a country winning this is nuking all the research/command cities/armies, and hope you have enough troops left over to bash the remaining into submission.
Agree with this. Azeroth's tech is clearly superior to Middle Earth, but it is no match for modern military tech.
WoW's tech is something akin to the Industrial era. The gap between industrial level military tech (thinking tanks and aircraft here) and modern is a huge one.
-In a documented battle during the 1991 gulf war, M1 Tanks were able to destroy seven T-72 tanks, with no losses. These tanks were roughly from the same "generation" of tank technology. Now imagine, pitting modern armor against this:
http://chip.choate.edu/bbcswebdav/users/jbackon/Courses/World%20History/HI256HO-S08/A_Guide_to_the_20th_Century-February_16_2009/c6bbe4c49caf2982fd2ea655b1ef5491.html
Looks fairly gnome-ish, and wouldn't stand a chance.
In terms of air power, I actually think Azeroth's dragons would be more effective than Azeroth's mechanical air power. If Azerothian air power is akin to World War I tech, their aircraft will be shot down without ever seeing the opposition, not only by modern aircraft, but also by vehicle mounted and shoulder mounted anti-aircraft weapons. Azeroth may as well not have air power (unless you count the dragons).
With all that said, Azeroth's magic certainly cannot be overlooked. Among other things, their magic gives them the ability to create food (a huge benefit in military logistics), safely gather intel, heal, resurrect the dead, improve allied fighting ability, protect allies...oh yeah...and blow stuff up
Perhaps most importantly, Azerothian magic can cause enemy forces to break morale and flee, and rally allied forces to continue fighting.
And, that's just dealing with rank-and-file magic.
I haven't voted on this one yet, as I'm not entirely sure which way it would go. I'm leaning toward the US military (especially considering that the US military probably equals or exceeds Azeroth's entire population), but want to see more discussion first.
UBW Sharuum
BR Olivia Voldaren
UR Jhoira
URG Riku
U Vendilion Clique
The “population” of Azeroth is spread over hundreds of servers that are essentially islands unto themselves. If you were to squish all 6 million WoW players onto one server you’d have the population density two to four times that of Manhattan Island. While that might sound like an asset, it’s actually quite a severe liability. Enormous swathes of the population can be decimated by conventional warfare… and unconventional warfare like nuclear weapons would basically obliterate the entire world. Biological weapons would also be unimaginably more devastating (Corrupted Blood plague would be about one hundred times more contagious and deadly). What’s more, resource scarcity would also impact the war effort. If 6 million WoW players are after the same herbs to make the same mana and healing potions, suddenly there simply isn’t enough to go around. Bullets and arrows run short, resources to repair armor and weapons become scarce.
World of warcraft battles are fought in a mythic setting using mediaeval tactics. While there is magic involved, your average warrior and hunter without powerful magical spell abilities stands on roughly equal footing with your average mage, warlock, and priest. I can’t recall anything in WoW that leads me to believe that the inhabitants of Azeroth could deal with a single M1A1 Abrams tank, A10 Thunderbold fighter jet, B-52 Stratafortress bomber, or UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter – let alone an entire squadron or company of such war machines.
And raid strategy doesn’t really apply. You can’t have your tanks taunt a Black Hawk helicopter on the ground while your healers keep them alive and the DPS burns the mob down. Unlike the dragons in Azeroth, helicopters spend the vast majority of their time fighting in the air blasting things to oblivion well out of reach of reprisal.
I think almost any modern army on earth would have little trouble dispatching the entire world of Azeroth. The time and resource investment would be negligible.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Ok these arguments are nonsense. Yes, there are lots of crazy powers, but if you're talking about it as a real place some things (IE auto resurection) are obviously game mechanics, not "azeroth is real" mechanics. Otherwise obviously any country can win, by blowing up blizzard HQ and destroying all the servers. Job done!
Daft arguments aside, I think most countries could beat Azeroth.
If their air defence is roughly WWI era, it might as well not exist. Even just looking at the second world war, late war fighters VS early war fighters you would take odds of dozens to one or more; the only difficulty was going slowly enough. But something like a flying fortress is essentially impossible to stop; it's a lot higher than, probably, the azeroth forces can stop.
Obviously judging the relative lethality - especially of the uber-boss creatures - is hard. But even the Australian armed forces would have a pretty good shot.
In terms of resources - I think people underestimate how quickly a modern military could destroy a country with how few resources if there was the will to do so, and no internal or international backlash. In a do or die situation, there is a *lot* of damage that can be done.
And that is without employing NBC weapons; something like a nuke, or VX gas, or various weaponized plagues are going to be damn hard to stop.
Nope, think higher. I honestly don't think a WWI era force could make any combat kills vs a modern air force, they are vastly outmaneuvered, outranged, outgunned...
edit: misread your post, my bad. All the same, I'll keep the rest of my thread here for funzies
For reference, simulated (actual flying but no live weapons) dog fights between the F-22 and Gen 4 fighters (F-15, F-16) resulted in a 144-0 kill ratio favoring the F-22. Imagine what that gap would look like between an F-22 and a Biplane.
If you'd prefer actual combat numbers, U.S pilots had an 8:1 kill ratio vs slightly older russian planes, during the latter half of the Vietnam war.
Modern aircraft will be able to detect and fire upon Azerothian planes from 100 miles away, easily beyond the visual and combat ranges of anything Azeroth can muster.
UBW Sharuum
BR Olivia Voldaren
UR Jhoira
URG Riku
U Vendilion Clique
I looked at the issue from the perspective that Azeroth were a real country that can be interacted with. If you take the perspective that a country is teleported into a Blizzard server, and subject to server resets and bug fixes, than you have many MANY broader issues than who will win in a fight…
There is no gravity in Azeroth. There only appears to be because geometric representations of objects we identify with (humans, Minotaur’s etc.) are locked to other geometric objects (ground, water) with mathematical rules that do not translate into real world physics – they only appear to. Neither worlds “physics” apply to one another so neither would be able to interact with the other. Bullets pass through faces connected by vertexes. Vertexes that represent an arrow, pass through physical objects because they have no actual mass.
There is also no air in Azeroth. All living creatures would suffocate and die. There only appears to be air because your characters don’t breathe but when they enter into an “airless” environment they get a timer that tells them how long they can survive.
There is no real-world equivalent to hit points, stats, armor, etc. If the issues of air and physics were to be resolved, the entities in each world still do not share a common behavioral language. If I put on my best shirt my strength and agility doesn’t somehow get increased. If I shoot you with a gun, you die… you don’t get a certain number of hit points knocked off your total. If I mine a copper vein, that copper vein is gone for good… it doesn’t magically re-materialize after a certain amount of time. If I kill all the boars in The Barrens than they are dead forever… and there is not a .000001% chance of getting a magical weapon off a boar corpse. There is a 0% chance of getting ANYTHING off a boar corpse. Real boars do not just tote around healing potions and bolts of cloth etc.
The list is endless. The language of the two worlds is incompatible so you have to compromise Azeroth to facsimile the real world – not the other way around. This will be a much better exercise if you assume Azeroth is a real place and we can interact with it… AND it is subject to the same laws the real world is. No server resets, no bug fixes.
In Warcraft lore:
That said, I'm still waiting for someone from a tiny state to speak up. I'm still wary of my current residence (Austria) being able to take Azeroth on, and even moreso of my other homeland (the Philippines). I still dont think either has much of a chance.
How well do you do against one?
Azeroth's nonmagical capabilities are not significantly better than Middle-Earth's; early firearms might as well not exist for all the good they'll do, and as scary as some of the monsters are, they demonstrably can all be taken down with swords and arrows*, and thus will not be much of a match for .50 bullets. So everything depends on the "real" capabilities of magic. How many mages are available? Does every mage know every spell, or are they more specialized and/or stratified? Can they throw fireballs farther than an assault rifle can throw a bullet? How accurately? How often? What can a fireball to to hardened targets - is it like a gasoline explosion, or napalm, or a shaped charge? How often can they cast invisibility? How long does invisibility last? Do invisible creatures still radiate in the infrared? What are the actual mechanics of teleportation and gating? What's the range on the Eye of Kilrogg and other clairvoyance magic? Can a mana shield stop a sniper's round to the temple? Is there anything in the magical arsenal that can mess with helicopters and aircraft, bearing in mind their speed, range, and modern all-weather capabilities?
*Even ghosts, for some reason. If this were D&D, the moderns might have a big problem with incorporeal undead.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
on modern world VS incorporeal undead: Explosions would (probably) be able to damage them - fireballs can, after all (although it's unclear if that is because of the explosiveness or the magicness and you do still have a miss-chance).
Still, modern nation - or whole world - vs a handful of shadows? the shadows (or other reproduction-by-killing incorporeal undead) are probably conquring the world in short order.
An Alliance and Horde embassey is totally what we need in Geneva.
I assume we'll just go under 'not interesting enough to invade'. Or see how far we get with diplomacy.
L1 Judge
This is really funny. I'd like to see how the UN Office would react to Azeroth.
Though hang on, your country is really mountainous, heavily fortified, holds vast amounts of monetary wealth (which should be interesting to the Alliance and the Horde, at least), and I hear your general civilian population has access to a lot of firepower as well... and your forces guard the Pope!
Plus, you and I are next door neighbors, at least from a country perspective.
I don't know, I'd say Switzerland has a much better fighting chance than Austria.
How well do you do against one?
Okay, the firepower definitely is a point in our favour, with all those assault rifles being around - and people are surprisingly good shots thanks to mandatory military service (well, except for me, as I'm short sighted, lack proper 3D vision and can't hit the broad side of a mountain).
Unfortunately, all those mountains don't do much against an invasion from the north - if an enemy is stupid enough to invade across the Alpes, they deserve what they get ...
Wait. Do pope-guards count as paladins in WoW terms?
L1 Judge
But we don't even have to use the nukes is the thing:
Oh and your lame pirate ships in darnassus stand no chance against a battalion of naval ships.
Just to give them something to do, we'll bring an old P51 mustang out to embarrass your sad little wooden air ships with balloons made of canvas.
Next up, as we storm the land base of azeroth, you had better find a way for your shadow priests and mages and warlocks to stay permanently invisible or else we'll just snipe them into oblivion.
But that's after we have sent in drones and used our satellite up links to report your entire lay out.
Then there is Napalm, cluster bombs, C4 charges, old school bombing raids, and tanks. That's going to be very difficult to stop.
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Since so many in the U.S have arms for just self protection; it would create a well positioned underground army of just non-military citizens. That's why Japan's generals argued for not attacking us directly. Exception was the Allusion islands.
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you never count the really powerful being in the world. like the dragon aspects who are as big as the world trade center was or something like that in their real form. how the hell do you expect that some bombers or jets can with vs an object that huge, who can use magic to protect itself and destroys every jet in 1 hit with anything.
how do you expect to win vs beings like the lich king, illidan or all these giants and giant robots out of uldaman and so on. even mal`ganis and all these demons somehow belong to that world and the titans. did you see how big this demon was who attacked the world tree? (forgot the name) he was around the size of a mountain. can use magic and so on. the heroes on azeroth can easily survive giant meteors, fireballs, icespears, hits with swords, guns, bows and so on. and this without getting healed.
how the hell do you expect to beat the dragon aspects who are permantly healed by several thousands of priests and paladins? chemical warfare wouldn be of any use since priests, paladins and so on can heal any desease in a second. or cure poisons.
you cant expect that 1 rocket of a jet can kill 1 dragon in a hit. if you see that those guys can survive hundreds of pure fireballs, gunshots, swordhits, and even bombs from engeneers without even care.
sure the rocket of a modern jet is supposed to outdamage all this, but if you think about all the buffs, healingpower and ressurection magic azeroth has, i dont think any country would stand a chance. even nuking wouldnt help much, since paladins would just use their diving shield and ressurect anyone else after that.
u also need to think that a normal human would instantly die if he would be hit by a chainlightning of a shaman or a fireball of a mage, while the people of azeroth most likely would survive several gunshots without getting healed. and tanks shouldnt be much of a problem for beings like blackwing who are at least as big as a aircraft carrier who can fly and use magic.
i think that even the united states wouldnt stand a chance vs all of azeroth´s combined power.
For stuff like air strikes, artillery and cruise missiles, that mostly just makes him a really big target.
In the game? Yes. That's so combat will be slow and balanced enough for the players to have fun. You don't see them shrugging off the same kind of punishment in cutscenes or other media that are supposed to be representative of how Azeroth "really" works. Sure, they're heroically tough, but it's Boromir-level tough, not Superman-level tough. If swords and arrows are supposed to be able to bring them down - and they definitely are - then a .50-caliber machine gun will do it much, much faster, and from a much, much greater distance.
Do you really think that there are several thousand high-level priests and paladins on call in Azeroth?
Even if there are, do you really think it's a good idea for them to all cluster exposed in one place against an enemy who can launch an artillery bombardment from over the horizon and sustain it for days?
I'm pretty sure you have no idea just how much more powerful modern high explosives are than black powder. And that's not even the real advantage of the modern force. The advantage is that those missiles are designed to kill targets that are much, much faster and stealthier than a dragon, from a much longer range. Even if the dragon somehow shrugs off the first hit, they can just hit it again. And again. And again.
You see, this gameplay thing, you can't have it both ways. If Azerothian heroes somehow have a WoW-style hitpoint system, where they can soak up lots and lots of damage with no loss of combat ability before suddenly dropping dead at zero, then it stands to reason that they also have WoW-style ranges on their abilities. Which top out at, what, forty yards? Yeah, good luck with that.
More plausibly, since spells like chain lightning and fireball have about the same range as a bow, we can estimate that their "real" range is, like the range of a real longbowman, eighty yards or so aimed, or two to three hundred unaimed. Thing is, modern weaponry can still outdo that easily.
Conventional wisdom is that aircraft carriers are basically big huge expensive sitting ducks if it comes down to a war with another superpower. They're just really useful for fighting enemies who don't have cruise missiles.
Deathwing would not be engaged with tanks. Tanks can't even shoot up. Deathwing would be engaged by air superiority fighters and specialized surface-to-air defenses, which - not to belabor the range point, but it's true - can shoot at him accurately from miles away.
The wild card is his magic. We just don't have an accurate read on what he can really do. If he can do another Cataclysm whenever he wants, then yeah, any modern country is screwed - that's a nuclear bombardment and then some. But that seems more like it was a special one-time deal. So what's in his regular arsenal?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The flip side to the range argument is Look how fast they TRAVEL that kind of range? every citizen would be extremely mobile.