Llane and Lothar organize defense of the Borderlands

Full History

Stormwind's first reports of orcs came from a vulnerable eastern frontier of farms and small settlements. The kingdom possessed established soldiers and fortified towns, yet had not confronted an army arriving through a magical gateway from another world. Llane's authority was therefore tested before the invaders even reached the capital. Protecting the Borderlands meant learning where attacks originated, gathering troops, and restoring a sense of security to exposed communities.

Anduin Lothar took an active role in preparing the defenders. Early campaign accounts describe recruits and established forces being organized for their king while rumors of orcish brutality spread. Infantry and archers offered the human army familiar forms of defense, but the invaders did not necessarily fight according to the conventions of conflicts among human lords.

The struggle was reciprocal. As Stormwind attempted to understand the Horde, orc leaders studied the strengths of human organization and cavalry. The first significant orc assault on Stormwind did not produce the invaders' intended conquest; knights counterattacked and forced a retreat. Such encounters made the war a process of military adaptation as well as territorial aggression.

The response organized under Llane and Lothar was ultimately insufficient to save the kingdom, but it defined the first resistance to the Horde on Azeroth. Later northern alliances would grow out of the survivors of this collapse. Their experience began with the determination to defend the Borderlands against attacks that neither the crown nor its subjects had anticipated.