The Broken Front

Quest Giver (Alliance): High Captain Justin Bartlett — The Skybreaker, Icecrown

Quest Giver (Horde): Sky-Reaver Korm Blackscar — Orgrim’s Hammer, Icecrown

Objective: Travel to The Broken Front south of Mord’rethar: The Death Gate and question a dying soldier about what happened there.

Quick Facts

• Level: 80
• Unlocks: Finish Me! (Alliance)/Avenge Me! (Horde), No Mercy! (PvP daily), …All the Help We Can Get. Your Attention, Please
• Chain Position: This quest is a major gateway. Completing it opens the entire Broken Front/Mord’rethar/Aldur’thar questline, including several daily quests and the That’s Abominable! chain.

Walkthrough

• Fly to the Broken Front, the battlefield area south of Mord’rethar in eastern Icecrown. The dying soldiers lie south of the wandering mobs that patrol below the gate, roughly [68, 62] to [70.7, 68.5]. Approach from the south and you can reach them without pulling the patrols.
• Alliance: Find a Dying Soldier and speak to him. He recounts how the Alliance launched a secret attack on the Scourge gate under cover of a blizzard, but the Horde ambushed them from behind mid-assault, destroying both forces.
• Horde: Find a Dying Berserker and speak to him. He explains that a Horde recon patrol spotted the Alliance attacking the gate, took cover, and then hit them from behind, pinching them between the Horde and the Scourge.
• The dying NPC also offers Finish Me! (Alliance) or Avenge Me! (Horde), a mercy kill quest. Pick it up while you’re here.
• Return to your quest giver to turn in.

Efficiency Tips

• The area is crawling with hostile Scourge. Use a flying mount to land directly near the dying NPCs and avoid unnecessary combat.
• If you have Blood of the Chosen active, note that the mobs here are Scourge, not Ymirheim vrykul. They do not count.

Lore & Secrets

Two Sides, One Disaster

This quest is one of the few in WoW designed to be experienced from both factions for the full story. The Alliance sees a secret operation betrayed by Horde opportunism. The Horde sees a small recon patrol seizing a tactical opening. Neither faction is entirely right.

The Scourge still holds the gate, and both sides bled for nothing.

Garrosh, Thrall, and the Question of Honor

What players don’t see directly in this quest (but which plays out in the broader Icecrown narrative) is the aftermath aboard Orgrim’s Hammer. Korm Blackscar’s report praising the patrol reached Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra, where Warchief Thrall read it and was disgusted.

Garrosh Hellscream summoned Blackscar to reprimand him, declaring that “there is no combat but honorable combat” and that he would not tolerate cowards. This moment is notable because it shows Garrosh, of all people, enforcing a code of honor. In later expansions, Garrosh would abandon those same principles entirely.

Easter Egg

• Bartlett’s briefing reads “The resources… the men… all lost? Inconceivable!” The word, and the trailing ellipses around it, echo Vizzini from The Princess Bride.

Cross-Expansion Connections

Garrosh’s Arc from Honor to Atrocity

• The Garrosh who reprimands Korm Blackscar for dishonorable warfare in Icecrown is the same Garrosh who, as Warchief in Mists of Pandaria, dropped a mana bomb on Theramore, enslaved the Sha, and became the final raid boss of Siege of Orgrimmar. His WotLK insistence on honor makes his later atrocities all the more tragic, showing how power and isolation corrupted a character who once genuinely believed in fighting with integrity.

The Wrathgate Parallel

• The Broken Front echoes the Wrathgate on a smaller scale. At both locations, Alliance and Horde forces attempted to assault a Scourge-held gate in Icecrown, and at both locations, a betrayal from behind turned certain victory into disaster.

Explore Icecrown’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Icecrown Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.