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Tonight's TWA raid cleared Durchest and the Twins in HM in 2 hours, 45 minutes, with just a single wipe in zone 2, at the bugged last warg. More importantly, the raid felt in complete control of both the boss fights from beginning to end; I think it's fair to say we effectively have both of them on farm. We'll go after the Lieutenant on Monday; I'll post a guide to the fight by the weekend - please read it through and comment if you're coming along.

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Based on Monday’s council meeting and last night’s kinship meeting, these are the kinship raiding plans for the next few weeks. First of all, it looks as though the core BG raiding group is determined to carry on until we complete the entire raid at least once. So BG raids will continue for the foreseeable future. At the same time, there is considerable interest in the new four-part Helegrod instance, even though we won’t know how popular it’s likely to be till we try it. So, subject to change as we go along, I am currently proposing that the first week after FTP comes in be devoted entirely to Helegrod. After that, and once we can gauge the popularity of the revised Helegrod, we will most likely alternate the two raids, devoting one full week to BG and the next to Helegrod.

A point to keep in mind is that Helegrod is technically an instance, not a raid (though without soldiers), and hence will not have locks. This means that once a player has defeated the bosses in parts one, two and three, he or she can go straight on to Thorog, or else repeat the first instances whenever desired (probably with a 24-hour cooldown). In practice, and since each will likely last less than an hour, this means that after a while we may be able to relegate instances 1-3 of Helegrod to a third day in the week.

In any case, raiding plans will remain flexible and subject to change according to customer demand.

EDIT: For some reason, last night we repeatedly talked about Helegrod as though it consisted of three parts; in fact it's four: Spiders, Giants & Drakes (all 12-man), and Thorog (24-man).

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Crucio having stepped down from his post as kinship officer, according to the Constitution a by-election is automatically triggered for the post.
The voting timetable will be as follows:
    * Day 1: Applications opened. Day 1 is tomorrow, Sunday 1 August.
    * Day 5: Applications close and voting begins (Thursday 5 August).
    * Day 8: Voting Ends (Sunday 8 August).

If you wish to stand, please post on http://www.thewesternalliance.org/index.php?topic=5416.msg50187;topicseen#new.

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Last night's BG raid killed Durchest in Easy Mode, then took down the Twins in Hard Mode on the third try. Congratulations to the TWA raiding group - this was effectively the fourth of six hurdles in the Barad Guldur raiding sequence. Next, the Lieutenant.

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I really shouldn't have to spell this out: if you have signed up for a raid or quest on the event scheduler, whether as TWA member or FTWA, you have an obligation to your fellow players to show up. If you can't show up, or will be late, you should make every effort to let your team mates or the raid leader know - even doing so at the last minute is better than nothing. Anything else is simply discourteous, and can result in an event being canceled when it might have gone ahead with a standby player. This also applies to those on standby; if you signed on as standby, please make yourself available at the time specified, if only for 10 minutes or so. Everybody please take note.