As a refreshing change of pace the Horde is apparently totally and utterly owning TB on my server - hoping this is the exception and not the norm so that Blizz doesn't nerf it.
Not sure if this is due to the rather difficult win conditions of the place combined with the Horde getting lucky and starting on D or that it's simply designed in a way that works well with the general mindset of Horde players?
Another possibility is that the past year or so of WG dominance has destroyed my server's Ally PvP skills. After WG was changed last year the balance went obscenely into the Alliance's favor resulting in them rolling the Horde through shear numbers every battle - if we didn't have T10 then it was only because it was an off hour with a normally low population.
This resulted in two things - first, the Allies had no ability to work on personal PvP skills due to the rarity of a one on one fight - they got to the point where they'd run if they didn't have at least three to one odds in a fight (they wouldn't even show their faces on the castle walls till they cleared T3). The result was that after the equalization fix kicked in the battles got a lot more balanced, although the second point still gave the Allies a significant edge.
Said second point is that the easy honor meant that the Ally players inevitably outgeared the Horde, thus further degrading their skills as they lacked the ability and the need to progress beyond a certain point as their gear (combined with shear numbers) made up the difference.
So now they're in TB and they don't have superior numbers nor superior PvP gear and it really shows - unless most of their team hits the same point they can't take it - the Horde players are too used to fighting heavy odds and without the obscene amounts of resilience and high end weapons the Alliance used to have they're getting slaughtered in toe to toe fights.
For those who haven't tried it yet TB is basically a cross between, well, nothing really.
You've got a fort in the center of the field - that's where D rezzes from (haven't been on O yet so no clue where we come from).
There are three objective areas and three towers evenly staggered around the field in a circle, basically turning the BG into a giant clock. The towers need to be destroyed by O - each one destroyed adds time to the clock (5m I think with a 15m starting time, meaning a max BG length of 30m). To win, O needs to hold all three of the objective points at the same time - you capture them in the same way you capture workshops in WG.
There are tanks scattered around the field with ton of health and they apparently can't be attacked unless someone's in them, thus cutting down on D simply trashing all of the vehicles before O can even reach them. The tanks are only for O and apparently have little/nothing in the way of anti-infantry capabilities as I've never seen anyone employ them against the players.
D wins by keeping O from capping all three objective points at once - basically they're just trying to run down the clock.
I haven't seen Horde simply all pile into on objective point and hold it via turtle yet so I'm guessing there's some sort of mechanic that makes that unfeasible, then again, Horde doesn't tend to turtle on my server/BG so maybe that's the reason - Ally tend to travel in packs and would rather simply get a lead and then turtle down the clock (not judging them, simply stating preferred tactics - whether that's good or bad is your own personal call) while Horde players just can't seem to keep still, wanting the max cap win and splitting up evenly over all of the objectives.
Whichever side wins gets some daily quest which appear in the castle mid-field - there's two quest givers and yesterday I got a total of six quests but today just three - no clue why?
Rewards are honor and TB tokens (three for a win and I'm guessing one for a loss) which can be used at the quartermaster like the old WG tokens. The gear is all pretty solid plus there's a seagull NC pet, a ghostwolf land mount and one of the compass point dragons so even if you aren't a PvP fan this place is worth doing at least for the dailies (all of which give tokens).
There's no such thing as "fighting in mid field" as there really isn't one - all of the combat takes place at the three objective points which is nice as it means the HK farmer types will actually be contributing towards objectives.
Also haven't noticed any issues with people AFKing - no clue if there's a mechanic to prevent it or if it's simply a case of the serious players crowding out the AFK crowd in the queues, thus making them too rare to be noticed for now.
Right now the battles are still pretty small due to the equalizer - I don't know if the problem is there not being enough Allies interested in doing TB to fill the queue or if they're already so discouraged that they aren't winning that they aren't queuing. I know there isn't an issue with enough of them getting in because if you don't queue at the 10-15m wait mark Horde side then you aren't getting in.
So what's it like?
As D, nothing really special - you cycle around from one objective point to the other trying to take them back from O so they can't have all three at once - haven't seen O hold more then one objective point yet though. All said, neither exciting nor boring - really just straight fighting - haven't done O yet so can't comment on that.
Right now I've only had a chance to do it with my main (my only 85 toon) a feral druid. He's got a 322 gear rating and 119k health in bear form and is proving to be quite the terror, especially against Ally zerges when he can just rush a group and pop berserk, SI and barkskin then simply start chain mangling them. Mangle tends to crit a lot resulting in lots of peeps who don't seem to realize that bears can DPS now taking 15k hits they weren't expecting to take - if someone doesn't CC me or, God forbid, I've got a friendly healer paying attention to me and everyone ignoring the healer then things turn ugly real fast for anyone on the wrong side of my claws.
The achievement list is kinda weak and I'm not sure if the 100 victory achievement is working as I'm not showing any listed despite having three wins so far. The 10m win achievement is also apparently broken as it gives the impression that you can only get it while on O, plus, I got it when I ended up getting in late in a battle, meaning that while it was <10m from the time I started fighting till we won, it wasn't a 10m win for the Horde.
All said, this is gear/toy farming for my main (and other toons when they can start doing it) right now. HK farmers will love this place, AOE classes are lethal and I rather suspect that a coordinated guild premade could easily overcome the problem with how it difficult it is to win on O.