Strike Force in World of Warcraft started in 2018 as a side game for people to recharge the batteries for Guild Wars 2, but quickly gained a few new recruits in the game along with some returning non-GW2 players who were interested in the new content the game would bring. We quickly established a guild structure and also early on merged with another guild, Riot Knights, and formed a raid team. The guild set a goal to achieve Ahead of the Curve each raid tier and then dabble in the mythic difficulty if people were interested.
8.0 G’hunn kill
2018 also saw the first year of a SF meetup at Blizzcon in Anaheim, WI. It was the biggest meetup to date, with members of both communities (and those not in either game) joining us for a week in beautiful southern California, including a tour of Blizzard HQ courtesy of Chases brother who works at Blizzard Entertainment.
One of the returning members, Grenaa, quickly stepped up and proved to be an effective raid leader. We achieved our AotC in Uldir fairly quickly, thanks to the long term expertise of the Riot Knights crew. The guild started with around 10-15 people but by the time 8.1 launched we had bolstered the ranks and were approaching the limit of 30 people per raid. By this time the leadership and membership of SF WoW had quit Guild Wars 2 and WoW was a main fixture of the guild, bringing in new recruits that were specific to WoW. Towards the end of 8.1 we would see the departure of a group of people from the guild. Unsatisfied with our progress in mythic and differences with leadership they would form their own guild to push harder difficulty content.
8.2 started off rough but after 2 months the guild was back at full force again and clearing the entire raid, Azshara's Eternal Palace, in a single night. We also pushed our furthest into mythic yet, achieving 3 kills. 8.2 and 2019 also brought the return of the SF Blizzcon meetup, although it was a tad bit smaller this year, 5 of us still showed up to sunny socal to meet up once again and have a few days of fun.
8.2 Azshara kill
8.1 Jaina kill
In 2020, we went into 8.3 hot and downed content quickly. However, we would see a crucial leader of the guild, Greena, leave the guild due to a difference in expectations and burn out due to being in the leadership position for over a year. However, the guild quickly rebounded, and after a reevaluation of having a single raid lead, we put in a new system with multiple raid leaders.
With a restructure in leadership, we quickly had two new raid leaders. Chase and Horrible would lead the torch forward for Strike Force, and after a rocky start we finally started to find our stride again. Even during a content drought of the game, we were able to bolster the ranks and continue to clear content and have fun, and to this date we still are raiding every single week. With everyone back on the same page, we are looking to clear mythic content and we eagerly await what Shadowlands will bring us. The guild had big plans for a large meetup once again at Blizzcon in 2020, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blizzcon was scrapped for the year.
8.3 Achievement Mounts