Six easy mounts to pick up in The War Within

We’re about a month into The War Within, so let’s take a look at some of the new mounts you can collect for riding around Khaz Algar in style with minimal effort. There are the usual sources of mounts: each of the four new factions has multiple renown reward mounts, there’s several from PVP achievements, and a few dungeon and raid bosses drop mounts. Today we’ll focus on a handful that you can get by more unique means.

Some of these you may have already acquired if you’ve been playing your way through this expansion at a decent clip. Others require going a bit out of your way, a little bit of luck, or a whirlwind fishing tour. We’ll take a look at six that will be easy to acquire without too much stress and give them a (totally impartial) rating on the awesome scale.

Swarmite Skyhunter
Difficulty: 1.5/10 Awesomeness: 8/10

This friendly flying arachnid is the reward from collecting all of the Skyriding Glyphs around Khaz Algar. Each of the four zones released so far has about ten glowing golden sigils to hunt for, and they are typically high up or otherwise tricky to spot. You’ll know you’re near one when you hear a distinct whooshing chime, and a buff will appear telling you how close you are to the glyph.

Progress towards the Khaz Algar Glyph Hunter achievement is Warband-wide, so you can collect the glyphs as you quest and explore with your army of alts. The achievement instantly adds the skyhunter to your collection. Though it shares a model with a few other skyhunters, it’s the only one with a horrible number of eyes.

Machine Defense Unit 1-11
Difficulty: 4/10 Awesomeness: 9.5/10

You can pick up a wicked mech suit by completing the Awakening the Machine event in the Ringing Deeps. This solo gauntlet features 20 waves of mechanical enemies that will try to disrupt Speaker Kuldas, an Earthen Awakener, as he performs a ritual to restore the device’s functionality.

For every five waves you complete, one of the chests next to Kuldas in Gundargaz will unlock. These chests have a low chance to drop MDU 1-11, so make it part of your weekly routine for the best chance of grabbing this mount soon. Don’t forget to pick up the Gearing Up for Trouble quest, which will reward a weekly cache for clearing 20 waves during the event. Different folks get different vibes from this mount, but it reminds me of the Ride Armor from Mega Man X.

Slatestone Ramolith
Difficulty: 3/10, Awesomeness: 5.5/10

A rocky ram is the reward for unlocking the Earthen as an allied race. This one requires some questing across multiple different zones in addition to finishing the main max-level campaign. Check out our guide to track which quests you still need before rolling your first Earthen. While it is great to be able to ride around on a ramolith after questing among them so much in the Isle of Dorn, I am a little disappointed that this isn’t a flying mount.

Delver’s Dirigible
Difficulty: 2/10 Awesomeness: 7/10

If you’ve always wanted to soar around Azeroth in a rickety old flying contraption, now’s your chance. There are some prerequisites for unlocking the quest that leads to this mount, including completing the main campaign and hitting level 80. Continuing the main story for a few quests eventually unlocks the Bountiful Delves quest, which leads to your own personal aeroplane.

While this process isn’t exactly quick, it’s almost certain that you were going to do all of it anyway. The awesomeness factor is raised by the fact that you can customize your dirigible by running further Delves, similar to Dragonflight’s Drakewatcher Manuscripts. With Delves being a permanent new feature, we could eventually see a very long list of options to perfect your own private air ferry.

Dauntless Imperial Lynx 
Difficulty: 3/10, Awesomeness: 6.5/10

The Hallowfall Arathi have been through quite the ordeal over the last decade or so, but if you assist them in fending off the encroaching all-consuming darkness, you can get two kitties! A lynx resembling an orange tabby is the reward for reaching Renown rank 21, and this handsome dusky fellow has a very small chance to be found in Lamplighter Supply Satchels.

You can earn these containers during the Spreading the Light world event in Hallowfall. The mount’s drop rate is low, but the satchels are easy to come by. You can also use this event to level your Warband as it doesn’t require level 80, so it shouldn’t take too long before you’re being whisked around Khaz Algar by this stubby-tailed feline.

Kah, Legend of the Deep
Difficulty: 4/10, Awesomeness: 7.5/10

This one’s for all of you that ignored all of the new content and leveled your fishing on the first day of the expansion. I’m not even sure we can call this a fish because it has clear arms and legs. Whatever it is, it’s horrifying and great.

You can pick up your own flying reddish-purple behemoth by participating in the Hallowfall Fishing Derby that’s held on Saturdays and starts just south of Mereldar. By completing the turn-in quest as well as catching one of every type of special fish, you can complete The Derby Dash. Don’t let the achievement name intimidate you — progress on this one is kept week to week, so you won’t have to zoom around the entirety of Khaz Algar tying to nab twenty different special catches in one hour.