...we waded into Icecrown Citadel for the second time.

Our fist foray into the fabled home of Arthas was met with some reputation from trash killing and throwing ourselves a few times against Marrowgar while he laughed and killed us.

A week later we went back in with a fresh raid, a fresh outlook and three healers who were actually staying connected.

It still took some time getting familiar enough with the encounter. On paper, it looks so simply. Stay out of the fire. But placement is everything. And trying to heal people up during the Bone Storms is nothing short of a pain. Oddly, we managed to handle the transitions from Bone Storm to standard fighting fairly well.

Anyway, a few fights later as we were wrapping up the night, Marrowgar fell. Our first kill in the new instance.

Regrettably, the holidays were upon us. And we were mostly unable to focus too much on raiding as we have families and other things to do during the winter holidays.

A belated happy holidays to all.

- Bjorn

Yeah, we took our time getting to this point. Some people talk of PuGging the raid quite successfully. Well we here run on our own schedule. Nice and easy.

But with the next patch looming, we figured we would try to wrap up the current top end (well aside from heroic) raid.

We waded back in there on a fresh Tuesday and took out the first four bosses with reasonable promptness, which left us Anub'arak for Monday (Thursday having been Thanksgiving).

So on Monday we waded in. Despite what seemed like it should have been a smooth kill, we got off to a rather rocky start. And it stayed rocky for some time. Refinements, refinements, refinements. Mistakes were made all around (yes, yours truly had to fess up to his own), and the raid leader was getting frustrated. Pretty standard new boss fare. Just getting the rhythm down.

Then it happened. Everyone did what they needed to do (or rather what everyone needed to do was refined such that they COULD).The first 70% went by fairly seamlessly. We rolled into the last 30% and hit overdrive. A short time later, Anub'arak was dead.

Congratulations again, Sinful Spirits. We may not be the fastest or most raid devoted guild on the server, but we are seeing everything that is out there.

This week we begin having ToCr on farm and also begin our assault on completing Ulduar. It will be done.

And soon, Icecrown Citadel will be before us and we will slowly tackle it as we have all content.

And thanks for everything.

- Bjorn

So we go into this place called the Trial of the Crusader. We're kinda laid back and all, but we figured we'd check it out.

Well we went in there mostly seriously last week. you can read about it in other news items. We managed to take out the Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxus. But it took a little bit of work on our part.

So we went back in there this week. Lo and behold on Tuesday, with the raid reset, we managed to take out the first two bosses reasonably easily. Then we came up against our new nemeses, the Faction Champions. A try or two on Tuesday was all we had time for. But Thursday, November 19 marked a new day.

We marched back in to face down the Champions. One failure. Two failures. Then suddenly on the next try the first three MObs dropped without incident. All our people were alive and their healers were dead. From that point on it was just mopping up. And the Faction Champions fell. Good job Sinful Spirits. Now it was time to take a look at the Twin Val'Kyr.

To be honest, I think taking out the Faction Champions kind of surprised us. So we took a short break for a quick review of what to expect from the Val'Kyr. After formulating our strategy, we waded in. Bam! Wipe. Not to be outdone, we thought we had a little better idea of what was coming. So we buffed up and waded in again. Bam! Graveyard. Again! Bam! Dead. Hmmmm.....time to formulate a new strategy.

Well, our DPS was solid. And we had heard of an alternate strategy that seemed much more straight forward. So we elected to try that.

Squaring off one last time against the Val'Kyr, we took our colors and waded in. We fought valiantly. It was a long, hard fought bat-. Hold it. No it wasn't. Not too long into the fight I looked up to see just how we were doing. Ready to offer words of encouragement. Figuring we had our rhythm. Just as I was about to speak said words....Bam! We had won. And got the three minute achievement to boot.

Great job Sinful Spirits. Two new bosses in what amounted to about a one and a half hour night of free style raiding. it was fun and we got the job done.

Next up - Anub Arak.

Another day another new boss. We may have gotten over another hump and are ready to start moving again.

Last night Jaraxxus fell, and in a fairly easy fashion to boot. We had a couple of failed tries before everyone got their feet under them regarding everything that is happening, but then we settled in.

One last attempt on Jaraxxus, which was probably our fourth of the night and it was on.

Early on, Arzhuul decided to be a martyr for the cause - an inspiration to the nine still standing if you will. So with Arzhuul dead and Jaraxxus down all the way to about 95% the fight began in earnest.

Really not much to be said about this fight. It was straightforward. It clicked. People did what they should do when raiding. Magdelia and Bjornstern stepped it up in the healing department and performed admirably. Everything else was straightforward clockwork.

Stay out of the fires. Burn the adds. Collect loot.

Another job well done. Faction Champions fall this week. Then the Twin Valkyr.

So in a month marred by sickness, we managed to at least put a team together and again throw ourselves against The Trial of the Crusader. using what we learned a couple of weeks past we were able to casually get through Gormok pretty much each attempt. The Two Jormungar continued to cause problems for us, however. With 10 o'clock looming and a call for last attempt we waded into the fray once more.

As always, Gormok fell easily - then the jormungar waded into the arena. With the frustration of paralytic poison and burning bile looming, we made it to the first transition without any problem. A clean switch and we were off again, focusing on Acidmaw. When Tadd got the poison, it was cleansed without incident. First major hurdle passed. Moments later and Acidmaw was dead while the entire group was still standing. But now we had to deal with everyone getting the Burning Bile....and the healers were running low on mana.

A few turns for each healer taking it easy and some steady DPS and Dreadscale fell for the first time in Sinful Spirits history. A brief moment of jubilation and the mighty yeti Icehowl pounced into the room...

Pixelvixen grabbed him and the fight was on.

Nobody dared ask the question of how it would go... The first knockback and he chose his target. Scrambling to get out of the way we surrounded him after he hit the wall....doing a steady amount of damage before Pixelvixen brought him back to the center of the ring. Second charge and Tadd was struck a glancing blow. Somehow, the tank managed to live.....but Icehowl was pissed - seriously pissed. Seeing the big red yeti sent a chill through the healers' hearts. Some serious healing was needed on Pixelvixen for the next few seconds, but she was kept alive. Then we settled into the rhythm of things. A few charges later and the mighty yeti lay dead at our feet.

Congratulations, Sinful Spirits. We may move into Icecrown Citadel when it comes out yet. In the meantime....

Jaraxxus awaits.