The Vanguard of Norrath

Happy New Year everyone!!...

and too close out the year, a little joke I found while trolling...

We're kinda all over the place these days.. in case you missed it..

VoN has a Facebook presence!!..

 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000132315895#!/group.php?gid=118159493205

an on-going recruit thread on the official Blizz boards...

 http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1127489318

and the Blizz board listing of our guild..

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/guild/blackwater-raiders/vanguard%20of%20norrath/

anyone for a twitter?.. LOL

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone in Vanguard and Out.

...but we're doing fine!!

The Guild as a whole has lept into the expansion with a fervor and is making blistering progress for a bunch of old casual guys and gals like us!

We've consistently capped out the daily guild experience meter and cruised into 2nd level sometime early Wednesday. Congratulations to Herbyvore for being the first guildie to reach level 85. He did that around the same time, nice job!

As usual we'll have a Friday Guild Night this evening but we won't be trying to crash Arthas' digs, instead we'll be continuing to explore the wreckage that is the expansion. We'll see about getting back to ICC in future weeks.

As a quick manitenance note to our officers: We have a ton of new characters in the ranks as people build alt Worgens. We also have had an influx lately of new recruits as players come back to the game and look for homes. As these toons get their guild invites, please remember to fill in the guild info tab as these people are invited and rank them appropriately so we know who they are.

Raiding Ugly is fun.

Our Weekly run was once again an ICC 10. This time we not only got through the first 4 bosses, but we ended up getting all the way through Professor Putricide!

We died allot, we ended some fights with one guildie standing (wtg captain combover!) and it was at times very ugly. But winning ugly is still winning. Gratz to all on a job well done.... sorta :)

BTW.. Welcome to another new guildie... Cressida

Hope we didn't scare ya away LOL

So for those of us not in the Great White North... Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. For the canadian contingent, Thank God it's Hockey season

Thanks to the holiday and a variety of family and real world commitments, the usual Friday VoN Event Night was cancelled. However we will pick up the event again this Friday, so if you're interested in attending, please sign up on the in game calendar. As usual our target will depend on turnout.

This weekend our roster exploded, as did the rest of Azeroth, with a horde (no pun intended) of alternate characters being born to take advantage and explore all the new content between levels 1 and 50 that Deathwing has been so kind to help bring us. So far it's a real blast seeing all the changes. Don't forget, December 7th is only a couple weeks off!! and then we'll need to open a dog biscuit buffett for that collection of new toons!

See you all during the week, I'm going to have a turkey sandwich!

Well we got bit.

Friday's Nights ICC 10 was assembled and was frankly going very well. With Herby and Fuzzy Bear tanks at the lead we cruised through that guard dog Marrowgar and that chatty witch Deathwhisper. We we're moving along ok (albeit slow.. we're old LOL) until we got that boat.

Not once, but TWICE, Saurfang managed to jump to our side in what appeared to be a bug ridden encounter. At one point Diamnae tried to board the ship for the event and fell right through it to his death. A visual that while it caused delays, was very funny. In any sense, there were enough graphic bugs and issues on the event to force us to call it for the night. Let's hope the patch provides Muradin with some RAID.

Since it was to early for bed even for us old guys, we decided to blitz Zul Gurub in hopes of getting members some pets or mounts which will be impossible to get come the rendering. No luck , but fun anyway.

Find a good view spot, park your toons in capital cities not named Dalnaran. Tuesday everything goes to heck in a handbasket!! 

Was doing some web trolling Sunday morning.. updated our recruit thread on the realm forums.. yada yada

It was while on the Warcraft Forums that I found a link to one of those classic gaming things that if worn would pretty much guarantee that the owner would never have any kind of relation with the fairer sex.

See if you agree.. http://swagdog.com/armoryinterface.aspx

Who needs traditional strategy’s!!

Innovation can be fun. A few weeks ago, during one of our Joint Runs,  We tried a different tactic on Saurfang in ICC 10 that proved useful. Being short on Hunters and their known skill sets, our group utilized some substitute Rogue and Caster skills to keep his dark pets busy. Once again on Friday that tactic was put to use on a full guild run and it worked without a hitch!..well except maybe...

There was a little trouble getting the adds pulled on Saur towards the end, so I went through my damage meter log to try and find out what happened. As it turns out, the retinal damage from Scaramouche's combover exceeded the dps of 2 warlocks going balls out.  Not sure how to rectify this. (Credit: Betas)

Congrats to all who were there as allot of guildies got needed upgrades and made good progress. As is becoming habit.. we will go again this Friday. Please sign up on in game calendar! It is very likely that we do a couple more 1-4 runs and begin in the next few weeks perhaps skipping to try the next tier.

New faces!

Recruiting is still in full swing… we have lots of new faces..please make them all feel welcome!

VoN PvP or as it is better known… watching grey timers!

In an effort to expand our skills, VoN has begun in recent weeks to dabble in what has been until this point for many, unchartered waters. It’s part of an overall effort to enjoy more parts of this game but also a preparation for the Guild Experience requirements coming with the release of Cataclysm. A couple weeks ago Methoz organized a quick event in the Southshore Area and we drew some attention from the Horde in a fun event. With that success fresh in our minds, on Sunday, thanks to Scaramouche’, we got together to run a string of Battlegrounds as a team. VoN has allot of work to do but it was fun and we did learn a few things. Just as in everything else, we’ll get better at it! Thanks Mouche’ for organizing and let’s try to do more of those! BTW.. we are looking for a couple volunteers with PvP exp. to assist us in strategy. Anyone interested in field command duties for these events please let an officer know.

Oooo and don’t worry about screwing up if you do volunteer… that’s one thing we can be pretty good at!!

Attention citizens, The destruction of your planet has been temporarily delayed, Thank you for your cooperation.

Rumor has it that the Cataclysm release has been pushed back until the first week in December. It’s a good opportunity to take advantage of a couple of things: (1) If you’re enjoying the PvP events, use the time to build gear so at least going into next season you’re not completely out-gunned. (2) There are a few pre-Cataclysm quest lines worth doing for those into the Lore. Not sure if they will have any connection with other quests after release but running around with a sign board is fun. (3) If you’re done building gear, save up your points for use in Cataclysm. Word is that those points will be useable in the expansion and you can carry a maximum of 4,000 over.

All week the Horseman has been dying at a stunningly fast pace. With the changes in the game he's become an absolute joke. Thankfully for him this is likely the last Holiday that will go unchanged prior to Cata release.

Friday Night as a guild we took another big step. A full guild only 10 man run strolled into ICC and got all the way through Festergut. Slowly but surely we're creeping up the progression charts and at our own pace. The only thing holding us back from 12/12 is ourselves. Once again, we will reconvene for this Friday. As usual no requirement, but if you can make it..please try.

Recruiting is in full swing and we have a few new members this week, Having not had my coffee yet I don't have them all here to list but you will see them in game on the guild announcement. Please make all our new folks feel welcome!

See ya in game!!.. and once again.. Happy Halloween!!