just realizing how incredibly fucked everybody would have been at the end of season 3 if team RWBY hadn't found the train earlier through dumb luck
the only reason the good guys were able to stabilize at all was that they could make a stand in the city, but the original plan was for a shitload of grimm to break into the city at the same time
as far as evil plans go, Cinder and co. had a pretty good one
I know, this gets over-looked a lot, but looking at the actions of Torchwick from Volumes 1, 2 & 3, you have to hand it to them that they had a tactically lethal plan. Everything he was doing, from dust hijacking to galvanising the WF
would've resulted in a colossal massacre of Vale had his half of the plan not been stopped by RWBY.
It's also nice to look at it in retrospect, as it appeared as hijinks during the episodes airing; Torchwick is doing bad things that are bad, there are bigger bads, but a lot of this looks like cool filler to show off how cool the girls are, and nothing happening here is of any real relevance to the plot. That's how I took Volume 1 and 2's final acts at the time. But, despite being downplayed by Qrow, taking down Torchwick is indeed the only thing separating Vale from a Pyrrhic victory, and a mass slaughter.
