Monday Monday

Man what a weekend. There's been alot for me going on in WAR and the weekend was a busy one. My Engineer hit 20 and laid claim to his beercopter, my Witch Hunter was born and there was much RvR rvred.

Our story middles with the Oathkeepers Legacy and Sephorus' climb to 20 (which as of my heading to bed around midnight gmt last night, he still needed). The beginning was the day before when I was of course up to an unreasonable hour. Sabina (OL Witch Hunter) had headed off to bed before a day of exams and I was left to amuse myself. We had been running quite alot of Mourkains Temple runs (with the standard practice of taking the quest to kill 15 in the local lake or racially appropriate scenario and the quest to do the scenario) as well as others and so our story found Norri standing in the Marshes of Madness Warcamp wondering how best to proceed.So the plan was hatched, let's take back the battlefield objectives.
It didn't go quite according to plan at the start. A brave Rune Priest whose name sadly I've forgotten and a tough and fun female Ironbreaker, Bergita, joined me. Soon we added in a duo of an Archmage (Snowblind) and a Bright Wizard (Radiant). With the little band we finally made progress on getting around the one roving Greenskin party there was and retaking the points. There wasn't enough people to make a fight of the keep, so we took what we had achieved and considered it good.
Fast forward to Monday. Sephorus needs 20. Norri is 20. Norri logs on and finds Sabina directly in front of him in Sigmars Hammer. A party is born. We head off to the Marshes for the same tactic again and maybe some PQ's.

This is where I really started to feel as though I was getting a handle on the server. All over the weekend teamspeak picked up sudden exclamations of " I know that guy, I killed that guy. Gotta kill him again". This time, Bergita was spotted on /1 talking to someone about Nebhorests Tower.

I don't know about you lot, but the Oathkeepers tried the tower and had a bit of a hard time of it. We never quite made it to the top, and having now seen what is up there, I'm not convinced we'd have survived if we had.

Well here is where the awesome that was my Monday evening was born. All that started it was a roleplaying Ironbreaker whom I recognised and a PQ I hadn't finished. We were sold. We joined the party that was already over there, filling it. Couldn't leave the Ironbreaker out though, so I somehow ended up with the Crown and started the Warband before also pulling in Dusana of the Oathkeepers. This was shaping up good. Some yelling on /1 got a few more interested parties and we had at Nebhorest.

The bloody vampire is a Lord. Secondly, he yanks out essences (we think he's doing it wrong as the text implies that he should be doing it to anyone he corpsifies) which form Champion level mobs. We got trounced.

So into the party we add Snowblind and Radiant as well as a few others. Things are looking up, I'm recognising names and getting used to balancing parties in the Warband. We head back and charge on in, merrily slaughtering our way up the tower. Just before Nebhoest we add the final Oathkeeper of the day, Nadrion. Swordmaster extrordinarie.
Commence spanking. Unfortunately Snowblind crashed, but he managed to return and was quickly picked back up before Nebby (as the wonderfully amusing Warrior Priestess Chelsea dubbed him) went down. 13 or so people, one Lord, seven GREEN bags.
Still not to be sniffed at.

Now normally when I have experienced impromptu parties, they fall apart after the supposed goal is met. Nebhorest was dead, influence gained, bags gotten. Instead someone made the golden suggestion... "Destruction owns the keep.. keep raid?"

Woo!

So that's what we did. The band charged in to the lake and took the BO's before setting sights on Fangbreaka Keep. /2 wasn't much help, but /1 did get us a few more warm bodies. Channel on Ostermark : OrderRvR also proved a good place to recruit and we soon found ourselves (after a bit of a travesty of a first attempt) on the second floor and pounding the Lord for all we were worth.

First note. Swordmasters can tank.
Second note. Don't try to disrupt a warband taking a keep if there are only three or four of you unless you're really that good or pick your moment right. Those that tried us got pasted.
Third note. If an Engineer looks at you with a grin and your on a balcony without any railing...yeah..bye bye. Punting Shamans should be a national sport.

The band, supposedly led by me, sucessfully took the keep and headed on back to the Warcamp. After some polling, we decided to head on to the Shadowlands to try our hand there on the very reasonable assumption that Destruction would likely get its act together and guard Barak Varr.
Now for some reason Snowblind, either to foster some working together or very honestly, thanked me for being the voice of the warband, giving direction.

If I really was that good a leader then I impart to you my wisdom.
Leading a keep taking band consists of pointing at a target and yelling charge. Pretending like moving zone was your idea when people seem restless. Listening to the main tanks and telling everyone to do what they say. That seems to be it, certainly it's all I did.

Unfortunately at that time (but not before handing over the reigns to Nadrion and Snowblind) I crashed but managed to get back in time to help assault (a second time) the lord of Spites Reach.

I like Elven keeps in T-2. They're open and airy. They let the warband spread out a bit. They have a nice winding ramp that lets us gently get upstairs. They also have a Sorceress with alot of knockback and a nasty AoE as a Lord and a clear circle on the ground that we discovered represents the full distance of her AoE nastiness.Also, my personal favourite. The pointless sticky up pointy bits on Dark Elf buildings. That stopped me being punted off the side quite nicely thank you.
After this we seemed to be in good shape. The Lord was pummeled into submission both in Spites Reach and in the Cascades of Thunder in Ellryion. Sadly we lost Fangbreaka but that's just an example of while one warband can take a keep, it takes more to keep it and still press on with the conquest.

For such a great evening I'd like to thank the Oathkeepers Legacy : Dusana, Sephorus, Sabina, me and Nadrion.
Also thanks to Snowblind, Radiant, Chelsea, Coors, Bergita, Nolodan (who won a gold bag if memory serves in Spites Reach) and Zeonox (sp?) who despite being an explody Bright Wizard, happily brought along his guilds banner for the extra buffs it afforded us.
Thanks also to the many many others who joined in my first proper taste of Keep attacking.

Final notes.
I enjoy using the ram. It amuses me.
Also concussion grenade is the finest example of Dwarven engineering expertise a Dwarf could lob and I adore it.

It was a fun filled evening. After the keep taking, there was Witch Huntering and an odd encounter for next time.