Farsight, I don't think we'll see the dread war horses until the next stage of the invasion when the Vanguard forces show up. Draconi's post implies that we may see these forces at or near "outlying Britannian cities." It's anyone's guess what that means.
I think we will have to kill Vanguard Controllers in order to get their war horses. Draconi's post says the Vanguard Controllers will be in control of units of monsters ranging from brigands to nightmares.
Will it be necessary to dismount the controllers in order to have a chance to tame their mounts (i.e., will killing a controller make its mount poof like it does with the elite chaos dragoons and mounted faction guards). Or will killing the Controller free up its war horse to go on its own rampage, using its special skills?
Because Draconi has hinted there will be rewards for participating in the war while factions, I'm pretty convinced this new critter is the "reward" and that anyone in factions will be able to own these war horses.
However, will only faction tamers be able to tame them and what will be the minimum taming skill requirement? What special skills or stats will these pets have once tamed, other than being stronger than the current war horses and stronger than nightmares? We know they'll do "tricks" for their owners, but will they also have mage-related skills or poisoning skill?
Once you get one of these war horses, will you need to have taming skill and/or achieve a certain faction rank in order to be able to ride the war horse? [With the current "regular" war horses, you can buy them from a horse breeder if the faction you are in controls a town and the finance minister for that town has placed a horse breeder NPC. You pay gold and faction silver to buy the war horse. In order to ride the current war horses, you have to reach a certain faction rank (I believe it's 2) and no taming skill is required. You get to the faction rank by killing enemy faction characters; however, I believe the size of each rank is dependent on how many characters are in that faction. If your character loses kill points as a result of being killed or through decay and drops in rank, then he can't ride the war horse, but can still own it. You can also still own a war horse once you leave the faction, but obviously cannot continue to ride it.]
Under today's rules you can rez your own faction war horse using a bandage, no vet skill required. Will this also be a possibility for the new dread war horses?
Will a dread war horse change color to match its owner's faction allegiance?
Lots of questions and lots of speculation. I'm looking forward to getting more information. I am a bit disturbed, however, by the fact that the developers felt it necessary to give these pets the ability to do tricks. In a way, it kind of cheapens the animal and I find myself wanting to call it a "circus pony," which is sad. The only reason I can think of for doing this is that I think the developers realize people may get into factions just to get these pets but may not ever achieve sufficient rank to ride them. Therefore they are giving the pets the ability to do tricks as an incentive to try to get one even if you know you'll never be able to ride it. I suppose the other possibility is that they were thinking folks will get bored easily with guarding sigils and maybe people will play with their war horses while they're guarding. I suppose that's good but the trick-playing aspect of the animal still rubs me the wrong way a bit. Perhaps I'll change my mind once I find out what the "trick" or "tricks" will be and also learn more about what it's going to take to get one of these new mounts and actually be able to ride and use one.
