A Raid that occured 11/29/2001.

People started gathering at Castle Sauvage at about 7:30 PM CDT. First port out to Midgard occured shortly after that. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, only half the people were teleported. Well, groups started forming up on the other side, in tank/cleric; caster and scout type groups. Two more porting cycles later most of the raiding part had gotten to the right realm. At this point HCD was proudly represented by Saegan, Natalyia and myself (Uthorn).

Once we had reached a critical mass, (approximately an hour later) the raiding party left for Bledmeer Faste.

Parade of the raiding party leaving for Bledmeer Faste (8:42 PM CDT)

Upon reaching Bledmeer a period of staging and organizing commenced briefly.

Saegan strikes a pose. (8:46 PM CDT)

Just before our first attack. (8:48 PM CDT)

What resulted after that period was called by one wit "Zerging" the structure. Everyone rushed forward with typical results.

Just after our first attack. (8:52 PM CDT)

Rezes in progress. (8:56 PM CDT)

I estimate it took us all of three minutes to get mostly wiped out. However, we bounced back quickly and settled into the more sensible strategy of pulling guards to our position and wiping them out one by one.

Back in business. (9:02 PM CDT)

Wiping them out one by one. (9:04 PM CDT)

And another! (9:13 PM CDT)

After all the standard guards were wiped out we then proceded to rush the archers remaining at the foot of the enemy fortress.

A more sensible rush. (9:24 PM CDT)

After the archers were disposed off we hacked at the gates for a while in hand to hand. The raid planners aparantly only brought a ram for the inner keep doors; which would have made perfect sense had the outer gate doors not been reinforced. As it was it took a hellishly long time to break through the front gate. This in turn meant guards repopulating.... On the plus side Adun and Var showed up around this time which gave us more rezzing power.

Going for the door. (9:26 PM CDT)

After the guards respawned. (9:40 PM CDT)

Rinse, lather and repeat.... Pulled the guards one at a time, rushed the archers and attacked the door. At this point we realized that the HCD had all the pieces we needed to build our ram, and urged two of our main craftsmen, Elby and Wei to come over.

Back at the door. (9:57 PM CDT)

We did, however, finally get through the door the hard way. Nonetheless, Elby and Wei still continued on their trip towards Bledmeer.

The door opens. (10:04 PM CDT)

At this point the ram was started. Of course things never go smoothly, and a particularly vicious guard repop occured.

Saegan, Var and myself standing before the open outer gate while the ram is being constructed. (10:06 PM CDT)

Well, we weren't completely wiped out this time... (10:13 PM CDT)

One particular upshot of the guard repop is that the person carrying all the ram parts that the raiding party originally brought with them had set them down for some reason. They disappeared during the fight. This started a hair pulling session for myself that I neglected to take screenshots for. Namely in wrangling someone, anyone there to escort Elby and Wei to the fortress.

Elby and Wei show up with ram parts. You can sort of see Elby anyway. (10:35 PM CDT)

A moment of relative calm. That's Wei casting that heal. (10:38 PM CDT)

Elby and Wei do show up and hand the parts off to the person doing siege weapon assembly. Things start looking up for a while; however, no progress is really made. Best explanation I have is a loss of momentum in the raid.

The designated siege weapon assembler lying dead. (10:40 PM CDT)

You can see that all of the HCD who were on at the time were at the raid. And you can see dead people. (10:43 PM CDT)

HGM Down! (10:51 PM CDT)

Elby mourning for Saegan. (10:52 PM CDT)

Elby joins the dead. Though in justice he did manage to block and parry the guard for a while. (10:55 PM CDT)

Getting a Thumport back. (11:03 PM CDT)

All in all, I think the biggest problem I saw with the raid was not lack of organization, but lack of faith in the raid on part of the raiders. That and scheduling the thing to begin during dinner time. Hopefully things will turn out better next time.