Meet the Wolves

I've had this comic kicking around for a while and only just got around to finishing it. So if you're interested in learning about some of the personalities of our raid, this is the comic to read. It certainly won't have you meet everyone, but if you ever happen to raid with us after reading the comic, you'll know who people are.

I hope.

Not that this comic is at all being used for recruitment.... btw, we need melee like whoa, hunters preferably, and probably a few casters as well!

Stop being so LOUD. GAWD.

There was probably more. But I had a friend sitting next to me whining that I've been making my comics too helpful. So this will hopefully be a step in the previous direction.

But as the Flowchart of Fail can attest, nothing I ever do is satisfactory so we might as well just pre-blame the Kairene and move on. On the other hand, I do have another comic waiting in the wings. Take THAT.

CURSE YOU REGINALD aka A drunken Story

So my friend Anne was in town. And this happened. To see the video fruits of her labors, please go visit Youtube here and enjoy.

In other news, another WoW friend is visiting now and he's been great help in the past in inspiring me (in a good way!) for things for this comic. Hopefully things will get more up and running and regular, which we all know a certain Turkey desires.

Throne of the Four Winds

We haven't really worked on this boss for very long. 2 halfhearted attempts that failed miserably until finally a good learning night tonight with a near kill.

Now, we have been busy downing other bosses in the meantime, this is just the first one I've actually had time to sit down and diagram as per TBD tradition. (Can it be considered tradition even going on for such a short time as it has?) Regardless, I wasn't THAT much fail, but I am glad to report that the Flowchart of Fail has found significant usage in raid, as was intended.

I'm so glad I can be part of a legacy.

The Great Return!

So yeah... after a VERY long hiatus... I'm back! During this time I have moved from Florida to Washington State thanks to a change in employment of the significant other and have recently reacquired gainful employment. So huzzah.

This post brought to you by the letter Bearstorm.

Guest Comic Dos!

This guest comic brought to you by a good friend, Oph, who frequently satirizes lots of things in WoW. He has another comic idea that I need to draw up and he will forever live on in infamy thanks to the obvious wild popularity of this comic.

Also, for those of you that are members of the Winter Wolves forums, you can now read this blog through their website as the RSS feed links directly to a blog I have there.

Life is crazy, NaNoWriMo is being a fairly decent success, and I move to Washington in 5 days. Internet goes away... in 2. Sadness. Well, the desktop goes away in 2. I will actually have a netbook for the point of travel. Huzzah!

Winter Wolves Terms Part Three!

And it might be the final installment, but as I believe there are many years of gaming left to come with the Winter Wolves Community, there will probably be more terms to define and explain for the n00b. Excitement continues to unfold as I'm actually posting. We skipped October, but to be fair, October was pretty insane in terms of busyness for me and what time I would have spent potentially making a comic I instead spent doing other, more.... engaging things. Not that this isn't engaging, it's fun. But not as fun as compared with... my birthday, and Aquatica... and going camping at an SCA event with horses and driving up to Washington D.C. for an amazing Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. I found Waldo. Five times. And Carmen San Diego, she was totally in Washington D.C. Halloween weekend. So now you know where in the world she WAS. Take that.

And of course there is always the end of expansion blues. No one is playing, the players who do apply are terribad. We cancel raid more often then we run. You would THINK that this means more comics for you. Oh no, my friend, it means finishing ZG rep before Blizzard removes the instance entirely. It means completely the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline for opening AQ (I want my Draconic for Dummies!) It means farming the FUCK out of Blackwing Lair because you need so much goddamn elementium for the Scepter questline and the drop rate still sucks.

But it's fun too. Plus November is the time for NaNoWriMo. So be surprised everyone, that I am putting comics up in November when I need to be writing 1667 words a day! I can kinda get this all done and watch Bones and Glee because I kinda quit my job. Resigned is a softer word, and really I left on good terms. Cause I'm moving. I'd say expect delays in posting but that's kind of par for the course.

Baddie McBadertons

True story.

Trial of the Crusader Part 2!

After a long wait. Shut up, Weasel. I'm going back to watching Weeds now.

Trashless Instances are Fun!

Things about stuff. You're gonna have to wait for the next Terms post. But there will be another one coming because I still have to include Ainur Strat.


That is all. My mind is kind of dead right now.

Guest Comic!

This lovely comic is created by Vayl, who I think wouldn't want me to put his real name out on the internets so unless he tells me otherwise, I will respectfully not do (Screw you, RealID)

Anyway, he asked if I would be willing to have a guest contribute, and I don't see why not, lots of other people do that and I'm a lemming like that. Not that lemmings randomly jump off the edges of cliffs into the sea, that's a wonderful urban myth/legend Biological fact of the day for you. Of course it doesn't stop the phrase from being widely popular and used.

Irregardless (or Regardless, they mean the same thing so my husband will tell you), it's not a bad thing. And it means I can stock up on comics so that I post fairly regularly without much effort. It's a devious plot.

Back by Popular Demand: Terms 2

Now keep in mind, the list of terms to include has rather exploded, so there's more to work on. But this is Part 2. I don't have much to say otherwise.

Say what?!

I've made the switch to Chrome from Firefox and I love it already. The real test will come when I start having multiple tabs PLUS WoW plus Netflix or Hulu open because that seems to be how I crashed Firefox a lot. Time will tell ;D

I've also gone through and taken all of these comics, which are drawn and (recently) colored by hand, and organized them in a binder. Rest assured the originals are intact thanks to plastic sleeves, but now it feels like I actually have an artist's portfolio as I've also included my recent artwork unrelated to the comic. It's nice though, having it all organized and protected, especially since none of it is in a journal or bound paper. Yay looseleaf. I also like how cardstock is working. It's nice and stiff (hahah), doesn't wrinkle easily, and can hold up if I feel like playing with watercolor.

For those that are interested, the color in these comics has all been done with water color pencils, I just haven't added water. But I like how the color looks on the page compared to crayola colored pencils (I'm too cheap to have anything more expensive than that).'


In terms of the comic, I'm sure all raid groups and guilds have a language that seems to be all their own. Sure there might be crossover of terms, but these are what Winter Wolves raiders use most. Our fall back language that every new recruit comes to learn, know, love and abuse extensively. There is, of course, potential for expansion.

Nyquil Induced Ruby Sanctum

Oh I failed so hard tonight. Go me for assuming autopilot would work. I blame the sinus infection/cold that's currently plaguing me. The Puffs Plus have not left my side since they were purchased at Target today.

More shoutouts to Weasel, who is always on my back about updating this darn blog. I should go to bed now though. The Nyquil is kicking in.

Though while I'm at it, here's a PSA from yours truly regarding RealID. My thoughts on it are: If you don't want your name plastered all over the internet, don't bother posting. Simple as that. This blog gives out more information about myself than anything I might post on Blizzard forums with the new system would. So there we go.

Insert Dragony Name Here

Self explanatory really.

Tales from the Crypt: Exceptions

This is an oldie but goodie. A tale of Karazhan woes, so to speak from the infamous Shade of Aran fight.

All events depicted are a reflection of actual events that took place during raid.

Guide to Raid Etiquette

Have an old comic to tide you over while I go have fun diving some of the springs in Florida this weekend. Granted it's not old in the grand scheme of things since I haven't been doing this comic for very long but it is one that was done quickly.

A Pause in Your Regular Programming

I just realized I haven't made a Part 2 for Arthas. I'll work on that tomorrow. In the meantime, have the Cliff Notes version of a raid of Mount Hyjal at Level 80+. It was kind of a joke though the trash was still annoying.

And there are more gorillas.

Since we last left our heroes, your intrepid author/artist has acquired a much niftier mouse, been blamed for many MANY wipes, imbibed much alcohol and ignored lots of complaints about the frequency of her updates on this blog. Bite me.

In other news, I'm going diving this weekend! So excited! We'll be hitting up Ginnie Springs and Paradise Springs in Northernish Florida.

Also, Real ID has hit the stores, yo. If you happen to wish to talk to me while I play WoW, add me at amye (dot) mckenna (at) gmail (dot) com . I like thinking I really have friends.

Tastes like Cherry!

So Hard Modes have been started. I can't tell you how excited I am. This is such great news. It really makes me glad to be doing things like this because of the frequency of my death. I love dying a lot. It's awesome.

I hope the sarcasm translated.

I think I need to get a non-battery powered mouse as I think the one I have is dying and causing me to screw up. Yes, I'm blaming some of my fail on my equipment. It's a perfectly valid, legitimate excuse.

I am the Lucid Dream....

As we finally did kill the Lich King, we moved on to Ulduar Hard Modes so we can all fly around on 310% speed Ironbound Protodrakes. Given the fact that our raid has nearly had complete turnover in the year since we had been in Ulduar (it was exactly a year ago that we reached P2 of Yogg. My Achievements said so) and that some of our raiders had never been to Ulduar (Thaaaaanks Blizzard for making gear so easy), it went surprisingly smoothly.

If there's one thing I need to say though, it's that I really really miss the Yogg Saron fight. Arthas was a fucking mess. Yogg though... Yogg was a dance. An intricate, delicate and graceful dance that had to be executed fucking perfectly. You were fighting an Old God. And you felt that way.

We will get One Light. I know it.

Ding Dong the Lich King's Dead, the Wicked King, The Lich King's Dead

Tonight we finally managed to 'kill' Arthas, Leader of the Scourge of the North, bearer of Ner'zhul, the Lich King. Of course, if you're at all familiar with how that ends well... I won't spoil it, so long as you don't tell me how LOST ended. I'm still on Season 3.

Of course as my raiding family will be quick to tell you, at about 15% I ended up DIing the blamewarden, which in my defense, seemed like a good idea at the time. Both tanks were down, I thought we were at 25%, and I thought we had no battle rezzes. Turns out, I was incorrect. I'm sure I'll have the chance to redeem myself next week. Not like that will ever stop them from mentioning it over and over again.

The only problem his defeat brings is that my husband will try and hold me to a statement I made to the effect of "I'll quit when Arthas dies". He tried to make that true for 10 man... but I pushed it off to 25. Hopefully he has forgotten about it. Hopefully he won't hold me to it. I really want to keep playing into Cataclysm. I want LifeGrip and my own Angel!


This kill has been dedicated to Feolas. Raid Leader Extraordinaire.

Good News Everyone!

We're actually waiting on a few people to log in so we can get moving on our Lich King attempts for 25 man. And with either a few more solid attempts or a few more nights, I think we will see the downfall of the Lich King. Hopefully by the end of June. Maybe.

Summer doldrums stink big time.

But as a plus, you all get a new comic! Hurray!

It was a bad stomach day all around

So I may or may not be exploring the world of something that has been released for special people. It may or may not be incredibly nifty and incredibly prone to crash a lot.

Maybe more on that later.

We press on and work things out. And deal with stupid ugly bosses like the one above. I feel kinda bad because just when I was letting my guard down tonight, thinking "Hell this is easy", both tanks died. That might have been my fault. Might being the operative word.

Regardless, we 22 manned most of ICC 25 tonight much to the dismay of our lovely tank. He's great though. I think I'm rambling. I'm also pretty tired and should have gone to bed earlier but due to an old friend popping up online I stayed up to chat and 'chat' (read: roleplay). I also may or may not have been exploring that awesome program that I might have gotten an invitation to.

Sad News

We lost our raid leader and dear friend, Cameron "Feolas" Pope Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. It was sudden and it feels raw and almost like a joke (though he is not the kind of person to pull such a prank). I have been in many raids, with many leaders, and I can honestly say that this one person was the best I've had. He was quiet, but firm with the people who needed scolding. He didn't tolerate shit, but was patient with learning nights and offered encouragement when we needed it. And I hope that he finds peace now and I hope that his family and real world friends will find comfort in one another.

And fuck if now we really have to kill the Lich King now, if only for Feo.

Val'kyr Trash

Oh trash. What fun you sometimes are.

Sweet Blueberry Wine, you are delicious and make even the (now) blandest of instances fresh and exciting.

Oh bed. You lure me in with your promises of warm blankets and a very sexy body to sleep next to.