Great job guys!

Tonight we got six weekly raid runs in! Fantastic. Up until now, we’ve only done 4 runs in one night. We’ve had a bunch of new people join the guild who have alts so save your weekly raid for Wednesday nights and we’ll quickly bang through them in no time.

A special thanks to Goddess who had back surgery and stuck it out for us and healed a couple of our groups.

So again, good guild effort.

We have several members that enjoying PvPing whether its running battlegrounds, Wintergrasp or just going out in the world and causing havoc for the Horde.

Although you may not be interested in PvP or think you’re just terrible at it, we do have a guild PvP night that is hosted by Nenni every other week on Mondays and have a great time while doing it.

Nenni also hosts quizzes during the event where you can test your knowledge of WoW and have a chance to win some gold.

You don’t need to be an uber leet PvPer to have a blast during PvP Night. Just sign up for these events on the in-game calendar.

If you’re interested in doing some arena, ask Draagon or Thyalcine in game for details.

War Machine has never been a hardcore progression guild – that’s just not who we are. We enjoy taking things at our own pace, have little time for server firsts, and it has worked well for us so far. This is an attitude we’re likely to carry on with for the forseeable future, as it’s what brought us together in the first place. This doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t progress at all, and this is what this post and plan is all about.

Now that we as a guild are starting to get some excellently geared, specced, and talented people and with Patch 3.3 and the Icecrown instances and raids rapidly approaching, we would like to be moving in a direction to get into those raids and experience the content, as well as move further into Ulduar and to the ToC raids.

With that in mind, we are ready to start building a progression team. This team will run once a week with an aim to clear new content for the guild, experiencing the new fights and gearing up with shiny new stuff, but with the core focus of having fun doing so.

In order to facilitate this in the most efficient manner, the progression team will be required to adhere to some stricter conditions than that of regular guild members. These conditions are still being finalised and fine-tuned, but consist of the following:

• Prompt, mandatory attendance at the raids – obviously, we will take real life issues into consideration, but we don’t want to have to be waiting around before getting things rolling. Enforcing this helps to encourage people to be available on time and when they say they will be.
• Gear, gem, enchant requirements – We will be ensuring that those who want to be part of the progression team be appropriately geared for the instance, including correct gemming and enchanting on all gear. Many guild members can assist you with getting this sorted.
• Prepared and ready – we expect all progression raiders to have reagents, ammunition, flasks, consumables and whatnot ready at the time of raid start. There are plenty of guild members that are available to help with this also.
• Fight knowledge – progression raiders will be required to know the fights they will be taking part in. There is a vast amount of knowledge available online and here in our forums about boss fights and what various roles require, and we expect you to be familiar with how a fight functions before we get to it. We’ll also be improving what we have available in the forums with regard to this.
• Team play – remember, we are a guild of friends, and we’d like to keep it that way. Be polite, courteous, helpful and patient. This should be a no-brainer really, but being a progression raider will be even more representative of what we strive for in War Machine.

Initially, we will be forming one 10 man group with the aim of moving further through Ulduar, hitting bosses we have yet to get to. As things progress we will be looking at expanding the team to include a second 10 man group and leading towards 25 mans. This doesn’t mean we’ll be restricting the current team list to 10 people – we’ll need more than that to cover when people are unavailable.

Those of you who are unable to run progression with us for whatever reason, or simply would rather not, we’re not gonna forget about you! Out of our four weekly raid nights, we will only be dedicating one to the progression team, so you still will have plenty of opportunity to run raids with the guild. The only way we’re going to grow the progression team is to get you guys and girls to a level where you’re able to join us, and that will only happen with gearing you up and gaining you experience.

So, that’s our plan for progression. The next step for us is determining the level of interest in this endeavor. If you’d like to be part of the progression team, either send me (Dakhan) or one of the officers a whisper in-game, here on the forums, or reply to this thread. We do have some rules for application however:

• Mains Only – We’re aiming to make this group as good as can be, so at this stage are limiting it to main characters only, not alts.
• Apply with your main spec – Again, we want to run this as best we can, so we would like you to indicate your primary spec when you apply.
• Application does not guarantee acceptance – While we’d like to take all of you in, the fact is some characters aren’t quite there yet. We are always happy to help you get to that stage, whether that is gear, experience, or whatever, and we have our 3 regular raid nights to help you get there.

We’re all very excited about this and we hope you are as well! If you feel you would like to be apart of the progression team, SIGN UP HERE.

Although many of us have been in 25 man raids and have cleared a lot of the content in the game, this progression list will be limited to War Machine’s 10 man Progression Raid Team.

Ulduar

• Flame Leviathan
• Razorscale
• Ignis the Furnace Master
• XT-002 Deconstructor
• Kologarn
• Auriaya
• Freya
• Hodir
• Thorim

Trial of the Crusader

• Beasts of Northrend
• Lord Jaraxxus
• Faction Champions
• Twin Val’kyr
• Anub’arak

Icecrown Citadel

• Lord Marrowgar
• Lady Deathwhisper
• Gunship Battle
• Deathbringer Saurfang
• Festergut

We currently raid on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 8:30pm to 11:30pm.

Thursday: Progression Raid (ICC)
Friday: Guild Choice
Saturday: Guild Choice
Sunday: Guild Choice

Most of the time War Machine Raid Leaders will decide what the guild will run for Guild Choice nights, but sometimes they leave it up to the guild to decide at raid time.

Please try to remember, if you are signing up with an alt, please have that alt geared properly for the content you are signing up for. Also, come to raids prepared with elixirs/flasks, food buffs, health/mana potions, reagents and enough gold for repairs.

Some other things to be aware of when raiding are proper raid manners and etiquette.

1. While in vent, try not to talk over the raid leaders during a fight whether it’s trash or a boss.
2. If you have something you think the raid leaders need to be aware of, tell them in a whisper.
3. If you have a concern during raid, try to resolve that concern after raid instead of during raid.

Other than that, we’re pretty laid back and have fun while we raid. We look forward to raiding with you!

War Machine Ventrilo information can be found in-game in your Social (O) –> Guild –> Guild Information tab. Remember that everything is case sensitive when typing in the information.

So that we can all have an enjoyable experience on Vent, remember to be polite, have a sense of modesty and keep the foul language to PG-13 or lower. 🙂 Although we are a 25+ age requirement guild, we do have family members that play with us and also children around when we play.

Be sure to clear it with the leadership before giving out War Machine’s Ventrilo information.

Ventrilo is a great way to keep up guild relations even when not in-game. Even if you’re shy and not a big talker, come on anyway just to hear some of the others.

As guild members of War Machine we all do our best to help out the guild. That’s what makes us who we are and and why it’s so great to be apart of War Machine. There are plenty of things we all can do to help the guild run more smoothly. Here are a few things we can all focus on.

• Grouping Up – Whether it’s grouping up for heroics or group quests, be ready to raise your hand when someone asks for a group. Although we have the new random heroics, it’s nice to have guild members to run with that we can trust and rely on. And also, don’t be afraid to ask for a group. We are all here for each other.
• Professions – We all have professions we have skilled up or are skilling up. Be sure to let people know, who are looking for crafters, what you are able to do. Along those same lines, if there’s a guild member you know who is skilling up a profession, check with them first before going straight to someone who has their profession all skilled up.
• Guild Bank – We have a guild bank with plenty of tabs. Some things in the guild bank are reserved for Progression Team members and some things are for the whole guild. Whether you’re a Progression Team member or a regular member of War Machine and would like something from the guild bank, be sure you put something back in and a little extra. It makes things cheaper for us instead of looking for some things on the auction house.
• Raiding – War Machine holds a couple of different raiding events throughout the week. Sometimes these raiding events will be for older content to gear alts or maybe new members who have joined the guild and haven’t had the opportunity to get the proper gear to join us in higher end raiding instances. Be sure to sign up for these raiding events that you’re available for. We also do older content for achievements so be sure to sign up and help out with those also.
• Be Positive! – The atmosphere of the guild is directly related to how each and every one of us act in guild chat or vent. Be sure to congratulate people on achievements. Make sure when you log on to greet everyone with a hearty hello and to greet those who log on in the same respect. WoW is a game and games are supposed to be fun. So leave your worries, frustrations and bad feelings at the log in screen and come to War Machine to unwind and have a good time. We all understand that sometimes we do have our terrible days and we need those sympathetic shoulders to lean and cry on. If that’s the case, try to keep those conversations in whispers or at least a minimum in guild chat and vent.

Those are just a few points we can do to help the guild run smoothly. There are plenty of other things and as adults, we can figure them out without being asked. As members of War Machine, we all have a responsibility to be there for each other. That’s why War Machine is such a great guild!