War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
War stories, articles & game guides
Gamer
Tribute
2026
Expeditions,
War Stories &
Culture
“You there! You look like you have some wits about you. We could use some more able bodies in Icecrown. You may have heard rumors of our failure in assaulting the glacier from the ground, but let me set those concerns to rest. We’re now mounting our assault from one of the most advanced pieces of engineering known to Azeroth, the Skybreaker. The Horde don’t stand a chance, and neither does Arthas.
Speak to me when you’re ready to depart.”
-Officer Van Rossem
Speak to Officer Van Rossem to secure passage to the Skybreaker in Icecrown, and then report to High Captain Justin Bartlett.
Quest Giver: Officer Van Rossem — Krasus’ Landing, Dalaran [67.7, 47.2]
Objective: Speak to Officer Van Rossem to secure passage to the Skybreaker in Icecrown, and then report to High Captain Justin Bartlett.
Quick Facts
Walkthrough
Accepting the Quest
Known Flight Bug
Turning In
Efficiency Tips
Lore Context
The Skybreaker is a gnomish/dwarven gunship armed with over twenty broadside cannons, serving as the Alliance’s mobile command center in Icecrown. Ground bases are impractical here because the Scourge controls virtually every inch of the glacier’s surface.
Van Rossem’s quest text references the Alliance’s earlier failed ground assault on Icecrown, explaining why they’ve shifted to an airborne strategy. The Horde’s equivalent airship, Orgrim’s Hammer, operates in the same airspace, and the two ships periodically engage in skirmishes.
The Skybreaker reappears in Icecrown Citadel as part of the Gunship Battle encounter (commanded by Muradin Bronzebeard), and in the Halls of Reflection where it rescues Alliance players fleeing the Lich King.
Easter Eggs
Explore Icecrown’s hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Icecrown Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
You will also receive:
Upon completion of this quest you will gain:
Vikstone's War JournalOfficer Van Rossem runs the gyrocopters off Krasus’ Landing and got ahead of me before I asked him anything.
“You’ll have heard rumors of our failure in assaulting the glacier from the ground,” he said. “Let me set those concerns to rest.”
He did not then set them to rest. He talked about the ship instead. Nobody in Dalaran says Broken Front out loud.
Two frost drakes came out of the cloud layer on the way up. The pilot put the nose down and left it to the gunner, which is correct in a gyrocopter and miserable to sit through.
They say you can taste death on Icecrown’s wind. Standing on the Skybreaker’s deck with the glacier going by underneath, I understood why. This is where every step since that burning day in Elwynn has led.
The Citadel’s spires go up into the cloud and do not come out the other side. Arthas is in there. So is the lich Malthrax who did the actual work on my wife and daughter.
I did not expect to arrive changed. But the mountains put a god on his knees in front of me, apologizing for what grief had made him do, and I could not say with any confidence which of us I was watching. Rage got me this far. It will not get me through that wall.
The ship might. She is gnome and dwarf work start to finish, no spellcraft in her anywhere I could find, which I counted in her favor. Better than twenty cannons down each flank, battery guns fore and aft, a steel eagle’s head at the bow, and a bomb in the lowest deck the marines have stopped joking about. She flies over his wall every day and he has not brought her down yet.
From that height you can see the whole approach at once, every road and gate and position. I have wanted ground like that my entire service.
Emmy Malin’s father wrote to thank me for sending his daughter’s last letter home, and to promise the blue dragonflight would suffer for what they did to his little girl. He does not know who killed her. Drakuru used me for a season and I let him. Valduran told me nothing I did could prevent his colossus being completed, and he was right, and it stood about a day. All of it came up here with me.
“The best war is a swift war,” Bartlett said. “The same can be said of conversation. What say you, night elf?”
I told him I had come to work. He sent me down to the main deck to see the Argent Crusade adequately reinforced before the real business could begin.
Preparations, then. I have been preparing for a year.
The Citadel waited.
Bartlett pointed him back out onto the main deck. An Argent priest was shouting over the engines that every soldier aboard had spent the whole campaign killing the wrong enemy, and the sermon Vikstone stopped to hear ended the only way it could, with a warning that Judgment Day Comes!
