The Alliance–Horde War is an intercontinental war which serves as one of the driving forces of the plot of World of Warcraft. After years of cold war, with conflict being restrained to skirmishes in places like Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch, King Varian Wrynn proclaimed open war against the Horde following the Battle of Angrathar the Wrathgate, a challenge in which the newly crownedWarchief Garrosh Hellscream gladly engaged in. The new war between the two superpowers raged across the Cataclysm and pandaria Campaigns. This conflict is thematically the Fourth War.