Warfronts!

Well, under Eitrigg's leadership, my Tauren Shaman fought against Danath Trollbane and defeated him, claiming Arathi Highlands for the Horde, surely for generations to come.

Yes, Wafronts! They're live, at least if you're Horde. While the Alliance has had the week to farm rares safely without being PvP flagged (though if you're not in war mode, you're mostly going to come across members of the opposite faction who don't want to kill you, so I was able to do so on the Shaman prior to my Warfront experience.)

For the intro quest (which I assume is a one-time thing, but I could be wrong,) I got a lovely 1-handed axe that warforged up from 370 to 375 - quite an upgrade over my old 310 mace. For completing the Warfront itself, I got a pair of 350 pants, and this, to me, suggests that doing repeated Warfronts in the same week could be very profitable, loot-wise, assuming that this loot is the norm.

The Warfront itself is a really cool idea that I think is implemented... ok.

Largely it feels a lot like the big "event" quests like the Battle for Lordaeron at the expansion's launch. The scenario starts with your fort in shambles, and you have to first secure it and then the nearby lumber mill and mine. For lower-geared characters, you can actually focus a great deal more on farming resources and buying upgrades for the fort while the better-geared engage the enemy. There's a sort of hybrid MOBA RTS feel to it, as you can summon troops to follow you around (two at a time per person.) Capturing various important locations along the way will give you access to new troops and NPCs to help you, and you'll gradually capture each of the key locations between you and the other fort. Once these are all under your control, you'll need to bombard the enemy fort with your siege engines (Demolishers for Horde, I'd assume Siege Tanks for Alliance) until you can make it into the fortress proper. Then it's something of a mad rush to take out the enemy commander, which wins you the battle, giving you an Island Expedition-like victory screen where you get your reward.

There isn't a ton of coordination required - there aren't a ton of enemies who seem to really require a tank as such. It seems that you eventually get to a point where you can't do much to upgrade your fort, so those contributing in the back might have to start pushing toward the front after a while.

I imagine you'll need to have most of the 20-player raid AFK in order to lose, given that your own troops provide a decent amount of resistance to the enemy faction's assaults. Still, the first time was fun, and the rewards are certainly enticing (though I always think a feature should survive on its intrinsic, rather than extrinsic fun.)

I had fun, but I also do wonder how fun it will be to do these over and over. I'll probably run it on my Shaman once again to see if you keep getting 350 gear - I kind of hope you don't, as grinding these over and over to fully kit out your character is probably not the best way to experience them.

Still, as something to do every other week, roughly, it feels pretty good. I am a little concerned that they're going to make the Alliance wait nearly three weeks for it (and as people have pointed out, giving only Horde raiders some guaranteed heroic-Uldir-level gear right before Mythic Uldir opens up is maybe not a great thing for the progression race.)