OK, so I promised a world building post on the SV thread and now that I am done editing the next chapter, I can finally do it.
Thus we are going to briefly cover some terms I have been tossing around in battles but not focused on over much, relying on context to convey their usage over direct explanation. However, they are going to become more relevant and while I think the writing carries it forward, I wanted to share this video and talk about it anyway.
Wards & Barriers
I've had characters reference these a lot, but you'll be unsurprised to know these terms don't pop up much if at all in WOW and not consistently. As it is, WOW doesn't seem to focus on the mechanics of war too much, or at least not consistently, but for the sake of my story I have to take into consideration why castle walls are still a thing in a world with cannons and such so here we are.
Wards:
Are a form of protective magic, akin to enchantments but often with a more subtle or spiritual bent (The language around terms can vary and be broad). For instance, Drakkari might place a blessing or 'ward' on their mounts to protect them from the undue influence of enemy shamans; or a house might have spiritual protections laid upon it to try and deter ghosts. Broadly speaking, wards is a long term, subtle enchantment, usually crafted for defensive purposes, to reinforce or protect against something, whether it be blunt force trauma (Like say a cannon ball VS castle wall) or something more conceptual as mentioned above. They tend to make up for a lack of raw power with scale, longevity and specialization.
Barriers:
These are seen more often in WOW, the Sunwell barrier around Silvermoon in the Second War, or the defensive bubble of Dalaran and Suramar. These are large-scale examples, smaller scale one's would be what we saw with the Drakkari army when the dead attacked, with large-scale coordination of casted and enchanted tools to create magical barriers to keep the dead at bay. Barriers are by their nature temporary, but powerful, yet so energy intensive that if they are long term they need a constant, overwhelming source of magic, (Sunwell) or are stationary and dependent on Ley Lines and in the latter case there can be very damaging consequences to maintain such magic constantly (Notice the irradiated crater).
Conclusion:
In cases like sieges, such as during the First or Second War, large city walls will already be warded/enchanted to withstand a lot of punishment in the forms the nation expects to be attacked by. However, this alone wouldn't say, stop dragons from flying over the walls, and thus barriers come in and an also be used to reinforce weakening sectors of wall or other fortifications.
Large barriers or massive collections of enchanted weapons (Shield Walls, siege engines ETC) will also be used by the invading force to protect their troop movements and camps as they stage attacks. The exact nature of these defenses will vary wildly based on magic, relative skills, numbers, powers, environment and of course, the intent going into the spells, one size does not fit all situations.
This tends to make war in the Warcraft Universe as much about stamina as it is attacking power or speed, it doesn't matter f you can launch a thousand cannonballs at an enemy fortification if they have warded their walls against it and constantly have barriers layered on top of that and the magic reinforced. (Let alone alchemically enhanced building materials)
This means, a good chunk of warfare is about finding someway to break through an enemies defenses so that skirmishing may begin; once that happens battle will then become less linear as platoons clash across streets, fields and forests. A good example, though be it a bit too small scale and adventurer focused, but overall doing a great job capturing how war looks and feels on Azeroth can be found here:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM1LxHosiFM
NOTES:
An exception to this common policy would be the Horde in the Second War, who had little defensive magic beyond what the Amani offered. Instead using their Death Knights to badger the enemies so much that their magical enemies had to focus most of their energy on trying to avoid their magic being rotted away or fighting tornadoes, while bloodlust enhanced orcs crashed against magical defense, fell weapons burning at the magic.
A good example of barriers and wards importance would be how the Troll Wars were lost. Largely in part because Jin'tha did not know the humans had access to arcane magic and as a result his barriers did not account for that, allowing the firestorm to break through and burn him and his army alive.
Quel'Thalas is is a unique example of high powered wards, utilizing the Sunwell, some twisted druidic magic, Ley Lines and more, to alter the land itself and suppress magic not permitted, but that comes with some major drawbacks too.
This system can also explain why dungeons are such a thing in WOW, and why its so hard to remove people from them.
