If you haven't heard it yet, here's some news. Your Albino Drake? Not so special anymore. Sure it was fun while it lasted, but it was never really that rare of a special mount. The Proto-drake mounts are harder to come by. Not to mention those drop only mounts that are based completely on luck. So what is the rarest of the rare? Yep, a new mount. Dragonhawk. It appears that two colors will be available, red and blue. There's a possibility that they are color coordinated towards faction, but hopefully they aren't. The Dragonhawk mounts look extremely unique, there's no other mount type like it in the game.

There's a few locations in game right now where there are NPCs riding on the backs of dragonhawks if you want to see how it looks. For the Red Dragonhawk Mount the most notable spot is probably anything Blood Elf. On Sunwell Isle, you can ride one yourself doing one of the dalies, or taking the flight paths around Eversong Woods and Silvermoon. To check out the Blue Dragonhawk Mount the best place is no further than Dalaran; located on Krasus' Landing, the NPC Hira Snowdan is riding one. Hira Snowdan's mount may not be the final Blue Dragonhawk Mount model as it could easily be a Violet Dragonhawk from the colors.

Achieving the Achievement

So how do you get this new mount? A new achievement of course. Patch 3.08, which is currently on the Public Test Realms, includes a new achievement called Mountain o' Mounts. This is an extension on the old achievement Leading the Cavalry. While Leading the Cavalry required a player to stable 50 unique mounts, Mountain 'o Mounts really pushes the bar. The new achievement requires 100 unique mounts. Probably when this achievement was announced the first question most people had was wondering if this is even possible. Obtaining 50 mounts before WotLK hit was considered a major feat, essentially requiring exalted status with all home factions. Just like with the old achievement, Warlock and Paladin and Death Knight class special mounts count towards the total.

Because there were less mounts obtainable by the Horde faction pre-WotLK, the following list of mount totals is taken from the Horde perspective. Before WotLK came out, the average Horde player had access to around 66 mounts. Or 45 if you happen to be a Tauren. These are non special mounts that can be grinded for through either rep or token turn in. There's around 10 more mounts of the rare quality that could be achieved through running instances, and even a few more that were rare to start with and can't be obtained anymore.

So starting from a base total of 66 mounts, poor Taurens, and adding to it the Albino Drake you'd get on the way to 100 anyway, there needs to be at least 33 new mounts in WotLK for the average player. Short answer, there aren't. Long answer, there are very few new mounts added to the game with WotLK and definitely not enough to meet 33.

• There are four new mounts from Mei Francis vendor.
• There are 6 new ground mounts, but trying to get them involves a lot of luck or a lot of gold. The Mechano-hog for example: the new engineering motorcycle mount has a 12,500g price tag even if you farm all of the other mats required by yourself.
• Tailors get really lucky here with the ability to craft 6 unique mounts to add to their totals. Players attempting to get this Mountain o' Mounts achievement as soon as possible are probably going to want to drop whatever profession they have and level Tailoring.
• WotLK also added an additional 8 flying mounts. Drakes and Proto-drakes. These are going to be the hardest mounts to get, most of them requiring 25 man raid achievements.
• So there is a total of 24 new mounts that are possible to achieve.

So Much For That…

Anybody going after 100 mounts is going to have to not only put in a large amount of effort, but hopefully already have most of the unique pre-WotLK mounts under their belts. Having to go back and grind Zul'Gurub for a Tiger or Heroic Magisters Terrace for a Chicken would not only be incredibly time consuming, but the chances are so slim it could take until the next expansion before someone could get them all. There are most definitely 100 unique mounts in the game that can be achieved. Most players have no chance of getting that number with the current amount of mounts in the game.

If you just have to get this mount and you're not already pushing 70+, the best option is probably to wait. More mounts will eventually be added into the game, making this achievement easier, and there's no sense going on endless Baron runs if you don't care about the Baron mount besides it getting you to 100. Another reason to wait is that originally the Ablino Drake achievement required 75 mounts, until it was realized Taurens couldn't even get that many. Most likely Blizzard will lower the required number of mounts down to 75 or 80. Then again this may just be one of those hardcore player rewards where you shouldn't expect to see more than 2 or 4 players with them a server. If you're going after this Mountain o' Mounts, I wish you good luck.