User:Minionman/Battle of the Courtyard

The battle of the Courtyard was the largest battle during the Reconquering of Quel'thalas by the blood elves. In this battle, the scourge leader in Quel'thalas, and most of the scourge scourge fighters, were killed.

Before the Battle
After the Battle of the Bridge, the scourge leader Raas realized that that fighting the elves in or near forests was ineffective, and that remaining in small groups that the elves could defeat one by one was also a poor way to fight. He ordered the remaining scourge in Northern Quel'thalas to join in the large open area directly south of Silvermoon. Raas guessed correctly that the Blood elves would want to recapture their main city, and decided to defeat them using the time tested undead fighting style of overwhelming an enemy with ghouls, using skeleton raised necromancers and other spells to help the ghouls break into any formations the elves formed.

The elves moving through the forest noticed the scourge's northward movement, but did not realize until almost reaching Silvermoon that the scourge had brought so many fighters together into a large group. The scourge had brought about 1,000 fighters together when the elves reached silvermoon.

The Battle
Fortunately for the elves, they had seen the scourge's forces will still hidden, and were able to scout the area to determine a good way to attack. The scouts soon found a road mostly surrounded by forest leading to the undead's position, the forest would prevent the scourge from surrounding the Elves or attacking effectively from the sides. During the next day and Night, the elves formed up on the road far enough away from the scourge not to be seen, and when ready, walked towards the scourge position.

The elves plan was to place the spellbreakers in front, than have mages and rangers behind the spellbreakers. The mages would cast powerful spells on the scourge attacking the spellbreakers, a fighting style that had often been used in Dalaran. Some spellbreakers and rangers would guard the sides. The mages had not used their powerful area spells during previous battles, out of fear of starting a forest fire, and because the forests often did not allow the scourge to clump enough to make such spells worthwhile.

When the Elves reached the scourge position, Raas was surprised that the elves were actually attacking, but carried forward with his battle plan. The ghouls charged the Elves, followed by nerubians, necromancers, and Raas himself. The elf rangers shot at the attackers, but had little effect, and the large amount of ghouls successfulyl reached the spellbreakers and pushed a few of them backwards. However, when the ghouls reached the spellbreakers, the mages unleashed flamestrike/arcane explosion combinations, quickly killing most of the first group of attackers. The spellbreakers were pushed back in a few more places by some of the ghouls, but surrounding spellbreakers moved backwards somewhat to keep the line together, and held off the ghouls until a second round of spells destroyed most of the remaining scourge.

After this second round of spells, few enough attackers remainied that some spellbreakers attacked the scourge necromancers and mages in small groups. Soon, the remaining ghouls were killed along with most of the mages, and the spellbreakers were charging Raas himself, with his higest level necromancers. They were killed quickly, and Raas's phylactery was smashed by the elves.

Some ghouls and nerubians had attempted to attack from the sides, but were obstructed by surrounding forest, and they were defeated by rangers and mages using slowing spells before the reaching the elves.

Aftermath
With most of the scourge fighters destroyed, the Blood Elves had little opposition to conquering Silvermoon. They had lost only 7 spellbreakers in the battle, of which 2 were resurrected. This battle established the Blood elve's main method for fighting battles in open spaces.

The killing of Raas and reconquering of silvermoon put some extra pressure on Kel'thuzad, who was a few days away from attacking the undercity in the first undercity siege. Although his plans did not change, the scourge's defeat in this battle put kel'thuzad under more pressure to defeat some enemies, and an extra enemy from a different direction further pressured Kel'thuzad into staying in the Plaguelands.