What a difference a week makes

I was off work last week, ostensibly on holiday but in practice suffering somewhat from the lurgy. There were a couple of days I just slept, but I also got in a fair chunk of WOW playing.

Monday saw a return to Naxx and after tanking the first couple of Construct Quarter bosses

 with Buliwyf, Andro swapped in and was able to kill the last two bosses and "complete" Naxx (and get the achievement). We sailed through until Thadius and then proceeded to wipe a number of times. A router failure by one of our healers meant we had to rejig things and bring in a replacement, but after a couple more goes we prevailed. The last attempt went like clockwork. Practice makes perfect?

Something else we did repeatedly last week was the Headless Horseman. Both Andro and Buili had everything they wanted from him, though Andro, as a mount and pet collector wanted the Horesman's mount. It dropped twice for us in the fortnight, both times when Buli was tanking. First time out it went to young Magariz, the second to Buli (so Andro is now green with envy!)

Andro did, however, finally manage to complete Rapid Defense at Wyrmrest Temple and to complete a number of achievements in the AV and IoC battlegrounds (we even won IoC a couple of times - the Ruin/Emberstorm battlegroup is horribly biased against the characters of Ruin as we're cross-faction and either up against other Ruin players (where the chances are even and the numbers favour Alliance) or facing a dozen German PvP realms (which henerally means a loss for the Ruin players, both Horde and Alliance).

My third major character, a Draenai hunter named Maebh (Mae for short) finally hit 60 and in her second AV managed to find a picture of Foror and Tigule (which Andro, with a zillion AVs under her belt, has singularly failed to do :) She also learnt to fly, which makes life in Hellfire Penninsula a much more pleasurable experience than Buli or Andro had. Though force of will (and willingness to wander outland in nothing but a tabard and lingerie) she completed all of the Hallow's End achievements bar getting the cloth had. After six days of trick or treating she was forced to admit defeat and wait until the 2010 season!

Also in hellfire Penninsula is my Orc DK, Clavain, who was originally created as a means of bolstering the funds of my younger hordelings but who as instead set out to explore the world (and principally so I can see the Horde-side of Outland and Northrend before Cataclysm hits). He went to Outland at 58 and, being broke, can't fly like Mae but that's not slowed him down much. He did die once in Silithus when I went (through five years force of habit) to the Alliance flight master and, upon clicking them, was swiftly butchered.

Finally, last night saw the Ravens go onto The Eye of Eternity for the first time. The first few times were chaotic but we soon learned the phase 1 fight (and are getting there on phase 2). Out few attempts at Phase 3 were disasterous, but it feels quite doable and we're hoping for a return trip (and success) next week. As light relief Angeliqa (who grew up horde-side as a blood elf before defecting to the Alliance) set her black tabby to wandering Malygos' domain, chased by the Stinkers a couple of us owned. Very odd to be fighting the Guardian of Magic and his minions with love-crazed cats and skunks dashing about the platform (antics based on Pepe le Pew for those who don't know it).

Yesterday also saw two new recruits to the Ravens, the first not known "in real life" but only through the game. Historically we've been fairly restrictive on recruitment, but fallign numbers (due to people moving Horde-side, to other severs, or stopping playing) has prompted a more open (if still cautious) recruitment policy to ensure we have the numbers for raids. There'll probably be a couple more shortly, after which point we'll take stock and see how numbers go for our raids.