It's the little things...

Sometimes you stumble upon something in WoW that serves no purpose whatsoever apart from being cool, I think it's part of what makes this game so great.

There are loads of these little touches all over the game of all sizes and scopes but I found something in the game that captured my imagination and had me hooked for a while.

Armour Stand

I literally ran into one of these in my order hall and couldn't work out what they were.  A quick visit to wowhead told me everything I needed to know.

Each stand would hold parts of the tier if you collected every piece.  How cool is that?

Next I was a little confused as I was sure I must have collected some of the sets over the years but all of my stands were empty.  I read the fine print and everything has to be collected on 10 man normal (where appropriate) and all for the same spec.

I immediately set off to Molten Core to start collecting!

Molten Core and Blackwing Lair

Those two sets took the longest to gather. 
Massive loot tables on each boss and not many dropping each kill mean the odds are against you.

Outland Raids

It was great to run back through Black Temple with Illidan back in the spotlight at the moment but, on the other hand, Battle for Mount Hyjal was just a bore. 
It is actually my favourite set and I was sure I had it in my bank but I had accidentally picked up an Enhancement piece and a Resto piece...typically, it took forever to replace them with Elemental pieces.

WotLK Raids

The ICC set can be purchased from a vendor in Dalaran which irritated me beyond any reasonable level. I almost felt cheated that I didn't get to farm ICC for the pieces which makes me laugh (now).
Ulduar and Naxxramas still have that epic feel as you run through them.  Even when 1-shotting every mob they are a lot of fun.

The Full Set (and me!)

It took a while but I collected all 10 sets!

But, wait!
What's this?

Artefact Weapon skins!

Balance of Power

Hidden Artefact skin - Amani

It's missing!

Obviously, I had to find out what the missing one was.
Oh no... PvP!!!
My order hall is determined for me to do PvP!
I'm still going at the moment so the collection is not quite comlete... but I've just noticed another empty stand which isn't even available until 7.2 so I'm not in any rush now.

I have really enjoyed collecting these sets despite (or maybe because) there being no tangible reward.
Pointless, but utterly cool :)

Now I'm desperately trying to resist the temptation to collect them on all the alts...