Congratulations to Taelan for reaching max level and making them the 42nd The War Within Iron Man Challenge champion. Taelan’s journey was 4 days, 3 hrs, 8 mins, 27 sec with a /played of  1 day, 14 hrs, 13 mins and 38 secs.
Taelan said, “This was my fourth attempt. The first three attempts were my Druid, Ironrose, however on the third and final attempt a rare hat transmog item red flagged me, so that attempt failed even though I did get my druid to Level 80 without dying.” 
Why did you choose this challenge to play? Taelan said, “When I first found the Iron Man challenge, I believe it was back in MOP days, it reminded me of the hardcore mode from Diablo. I personally prefer games that give you one life, you die, your dead, game over, start again. All these games that allow for respawn for me takes something away from the game, there is a lack of threat. I’ve teamed up with multiple people over time who’s attitudes are doesn’t matter if you die, respawn and go again. I really enjoyed playing hardcore mode in Diablo and this at the time was the closest thing in WOW to that.”
What race/class/spec did you choose to go with and were there any specific reasons for that choice? “I wanted to pick the hardest combination of class and race, almost like doubling down on the Iron Man challenge, after looking at many forums, there were many comments about warriors being painfully hard due to lack of rage build up. My main on retail is my Warrior Izual, Warrior tank, so I thought let’s see how hard can it be and choose to Warrior tank. I choose Undead as I wanted to see what levelling would be like. I’ve not completed starting zone quests for an Undead Warrior for some time and I wanted to see how much had changed.”
What path did you take to level and were there specific reasons for those choices? Taelan mentioned, “I levelled from 1 to 10 in the Undead starting zone, then moved to Dragon Isles. I was trying to speed run and I’m pretty familiar with the Dragon Isle questing, World Quest and what to look out for.”
Did you have any close calls while leveling this character? Taelan said, “I did find levelling very slow; well it felt incredibly slow. Once I improved on Taelan’s gear, he became less squishy, but early on I really had to focus on pulls and not being too worried about running if things got out of hand. I do remember one instance in Hallowfall, close to the Veneration Grounds, I managed to pull some gold elite that hit like a truck; sorry I don’t remember the name I was too busy running, this elite didn’t stop chasing me down, so I used my heroic leap a several times to put some distance between me and him and then hearthed, it was the only way to get away from him. I remember calling it a night at that point, I was Level 78 and I was trying push for max level, but tiredness had kicked which nearly cost me this run. I also noticed that in the same place in Hallowfall, the creatures there pull in groups and whilst taking one group down, other groups of mobs pull as well. I don’t know if the zone is broken or meant to be like that, but at one point I had three groups of mobs on me and I had to run again, not the safest of places to level. With the scary elite that wouldn’t give up running me down and the party groups of mobs that wanted a piece of me, I decided to move to the other side of Hallowfall to finish levelling.”
Do you have any advice you would give to someone else thinking of trying out Iron Man challenge? “It really is a lot of fun, takes patience and adds another depth to an already incredible game.”
Are you working on any other challengers or do you plan on taking a break for a while? Taelan mentioned, “I am thinking about attempting your Bloodthirsty or/and Pacifist challenges, but for now as I’ve completed two Iron Man challenges back to back so I’m going to give it a rest for the moment. I also thought about completing the Classic Iron Man challenge as a Warrior Tank to compare to the retail version, we will see.”
Congratulations once again to Taelan on becoming our 42nd The War Within Iron Man champion, and best of luck with your future challenge adventures.