Good post here and the discussion seems to indicate that many people agree that Horde does have a can’t miss strategy to win AV. Add in the calls for old AV, “Tell the Blizz that we want Ivus and Lok back.” and I call this thread a winner.

Scorched Earth AV is a game of AV where Horde do not let alliance take anything. This prevent alliance accomplishing any objective and recieving any bonus honor whatsoever. This is best accomplished by playing defense at the chokepoint between the Iceblood Tower and Iceblood graveyard, it’s a narrow chokepoint under Iceblood tower Arrow fire and right next to a graveyard, making it very easy to defend and reinforce while watching objectives at the same time.

With just a handful or two of capable players using Earthbind Totems or Frost traps or Frost Nova’s or any other AoE slow or root with some healers and DPS, the entire alliance -zerg-(that’s what it is, a mindless PvE zerg they use because of the sheer ease they have in capping every single objective from beginning to end) can be destroyed and folded in on itself.

This is Horde’s unique advantage on the AV map. Our first chokepoint(we only have 2 chokepoints altogether) is also in front of our first GY. Alliance’s first chokepoint is behind their first GY. This means that even if Alliance copies and retaliates by playing defense, they can’t stonewall horde on all of the objectives nearly as effectively. It’s much more likely for Alliance to lose Stonehearth bunker, for example. So even in an extended reinforcement battle under these circumstances, Alliance will lose.

If horde manages to wipe alliance offense(That’s the first goal, make them die and rez as far north as you can), it can be easy to combine all of horde offense AND defense and push the now bottlenecked alliance players from Stonehearth and above. This makes playing easy- everybody is all massed together accomplishing both offense and defense at the same time with little to no risk of having towers and graveyards being taken.

Horde should play scorched earth AV.
Factor in HKs and additional Bonus honor for not losing towers and for winning, a 23, 25 minute victory in this way is just as good or superior than a 13 minute zerg into a loss. “Honor per hour guys” willing to ignore the impact of less AV tokens from losing will disagree with me and make the argument that this is retarded because it means less honor.
Lastly, this scorched earth AV, in the act of depriving Alliance of honor, causes the typical Alliance player to fold and give up. This makes AV easier, future AVs easier, and allows Horde to take place as the dominant faction. Being AV weekend, exploiting scorched earth AV tactics would be extremely rewarding, by the time Alliance has reacted in petty boycotts and walled up in a flurry of QQs for Blizzard to fix this “problem”, you’ll have reaped thousands of points of honor from AV. To enact scorched earth AV strategy, you do not have a majority consensus that this is the right action to do- less than 50% of Horde playing in a like minded manner can play out the scorched earth AV defense with the other 50% making up offense.

Simply mass up with other horde interested on defense at the Iceblood chokepoint.

There is a serious problem now – BGs are often starting with one side vastly outnumbering the other. When I was around 60 with Goldsong, AV rocked – numbers were even – and we won more than we lost. That was before I transferred Goldsong away from Dethecus so…

Now Gnometosser is entering AV, a bit early at 51, because I want some quest rewards and gear from AV marks. I don’t know if I’ll ever win an AV in this bracket though. I just lost 5 in a row and Horde is outnumberd about 40-20. It just sucks roayally.

With Goldsong, I’ve been doing EOTS for marks for S1 mace and shield. There Horde is often outnumbered as well (different battle group but same problem). 15-10 is a common starting point.

Blizzard, don’t start a BG when one team has twice as many players as the other. WTF?

Gnometoseer is 48 now and pretty soon he can get into AV. At lower levels I may not be able to do much but I will go in there and try to do my part fairly early (level 52 or so).

On Goldsong I waited until level 58 to enter, but with Gnometosser I will be a bit more greedy. I want some stuff from AV before I hit 60:

Bandolier and quiver at 55, plus I want my crossbow as soon as spossible (like level 51 or 52).

I think I also want a Frostwolf mount (not a big kodo fan) and a battle standard (becauses it might be kind of fun / cool). That stuff I can earn later. Maybe get the mount from 58-60 and maybe do the banner then or maybe at 70 or maybe not at all.