I am generally not one for faction grinds in WoW or any other game.
Once in a while though I can combine something else with such a grind to make it tolerable. Getting to exalted with the Kalu’ak for example gave me decent experience running their daily quests and I really wanted that fishing pole.
So when Ula decided over the past weekend to take on the tailor role in our little guild, I jumped in to help gather netherweave cloth for the effort. I already knew where I could get some.
I had been working, very slowly on faction with the Kurenai in Nagrand. By killing ogres in Nagrand you get a small boost to Kurenai faction, plus you have a chance to get warbead drops which can been handed over in stacks of 10 for 500 faction with the Kurenai.
I was already at revered with the Kurenai, but I was having a problem motivating myself for that 21K faction point climb to get to exalted.
But as a side benefit from killing the ogres, you end up with a lot of netherweave cloth. So there was the hook and away I went.
By the time Ula was done with netherweave I was past the 16K faction mark and I had a pile of warbeads on me, so I went to turn them in.
The main benefit from Kurenai faction for me was the ability to purchase talbuk mounts from them. So I picked out a nice cobalt blue riding talbuk.
Talbuk in the Snow
I showed this new mount to my daughter. She liked it. It is a bit different. But then she wanted to know when I was going to get a dragon mount to fly around on. That is another faction grind.
I actually bought a couple of the talbuk mounts, which got me another achievement.
Stable Keeper is the achievement for having 10 mounts. At 50 mounts you get the achievement Leading the Cavalry which also comes with an Albino Drake as a reward. I will have to go study the Warcraft Mounts web site to see what it would take me to get there.
Of course, as a paladin and an engineer, Vikund gets a pretty easy four mount boost. Still, 40 mounts to go. I’d probably best start with faction from the original alliance factions first. If I can stand the grind.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I’m assuming this is 50 unique mounts? If so, damn, WoW has 50+ unique mounts in the game? Crazy.
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No, crazy is the fact that Leading the Cavalry is only the penultimate mount achievement. For 100 mounts collected you get the Mountain O Mounts achievement… and another mount.
I can actually chart a less than insane course to getting to 50. 100 though….
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You can also get a free dragon with no rep by completing a timed heroic Culling of Strathome run and killing the extra boss. One drops every time as long as you kill the extra boss within the time limit, so someone gets one.
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Doing the argent tournament stuff can get you to exalted with all of the capital city factions pretty quickly.
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I definitely like it when I can combine two grinds into one by doing things like grinding cloth on mobs that are worth rep anyway. It definitely takes the edge off the grind when you can break it up into mini-grinds.
If you’re looking for a dragon like the albino drake, your best choice may be the old Netherdrakes. The level 70 daily quests will run pretty quickly at level 80, you won’t have much competition for mobs, items, etc, and there are no major out-of-pocket expenses if you’ve already got epic flying skill. There’s also a red one available for 1600 gold at exalted with Wyrmrest, and you could use their tabard in lieu of daily quests for the rep if you were so inclined. I suspect that either of these options would be quicker, and possibly cheaper, than obtaining 40 more mounts by some other means.
(If you are making the attempt, remember that you don’t need any additional rep for your racial ground mounts – which are now dirt cheap thanks to the lower mount skill level – and the basic Alliance gryphons. Both of these come in regular and epic forms, so your mount count can probably go up by at least a handful even before you worry about any new reps.)
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I know of only two people on my who have completed the 100 mounts achievement. I currently have 81, a buddy of mine has 90.
@ Syncaine – there are a massive number of mounts, sure… but there are no where near as many models. Off the top of my head:
Sea Turtle, Coral Turtle
Ram, Horse, Mechanostrider, Cat, Elekk
Undead Horse, Worg, Kodo, Raptor, Hawkstrider
Gryphon, Windrider, Dragonhawk, Hippogryph
Netherskate, Netherdrake, Drake, Proto-Drake, Frostwyrm
Talbuk, Mammoth
Flying Carpet, Helicopter
Phoenix, Flying Robot Head, Flying Rocket
There are some variations within the basic models. For example, the Netherdrake, Gladiator’s Netherdrake, and “Normal” Drake have small differences within the model (usually related to armor, though Netherdrakes do have a different tail), but the core model is the same. Likewise there are “Grand Mammoths” that are the basic Mammoth with armor and passenger seats.
Note that the last three mounts are the only models limited to a single item without a reskin. Chances are, that will never change.
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7 for each racial faction (NE used to have 6, but they added one in 3.2)
8 kurenai
6 griffon flyers
2 paladin mounts
===
51 mounts
Getting to exalted with all the racial factions is amazingly easy now that you can see low level quests and with the Crusaders Colosseum quests.
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In my previous post I was assuming you had epic flight when I said that there are 6 griffon flyers. But then if you are going for the Albino Drake you need the epic flying to use it anyways.
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What Scott said. Do the Argent Tourney stuff for oodles of faction… if you can stomach it. There are rewards for becoming a champion of all factions and some of the quartermaster gear is decent for a non-raider, though you might get better from the ToC normal level instance.
UFTimmy is right – I just got that Bronze Drake this weekend. It’s pretty sweet. Feels slower but it isn’t, it’s just bigger… a lot bigger. I love when it glides. :$
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And now I have an urge to go buy up all the lower level mounts to hit the 50 marker for the White Drake. :(
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Guess I’ll add the AQ40 bug mount to the list, if it counts (the one only usable in AQ40, the black one usable outside is (or was) impossible to get now)
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