We are indeed still alive and making progress with hard modes. Only raiding two nights a week, the new Trial of the Crusader has been eating into our learning time for Ulduar. The week before last we got our first kill of Steelbreaker, which ended up being surprisingly easy for us. We had been shying away from the hard-mode, thinking our time would be better spent on hard-mode Keepers, since we already have Algalon keys in progress, but it turned out to be little more difficult than the easy kill order.
This past week then we came in with our most solid composition and group in a while and finally knocked out Freya and Hodir hard-modes. Not much to say about Hodir, since it's simply a matter of not failing. Freya was the most challenging hard-mode for us so far, for no terribly good reason. However having wiped to it a bit over the past few weeks made the kill that much more rewarding for us this week, so some good certainly came of it.
Just hard-mode Mimiron left until Algalon, and then hard-mode Vezax and One Light in the Darkness until Glory of the Ulduar Raider. Trial of the Crusader has been copacetic; we've been downing the new bosses as they come up. It's quite a bit on the easy side, but hopefully the Heroic will scale up appropriately.
As always, if you're interested in joining us or helping out, contact Iyre or Makyle, or approach us on the forums.
P.S. 10 man drops suck.