Steed of Withywindle and a Hobby Horse

Supergirl rides the Steed of Withywindle

Hello hello! I am late getting this posted, but here are shots of the Steed of Withywindle, the December steed of the month! If this is the steed you desire, don't delay as it is scheduled to gallop from the lotro stable on December 31st. Visit all the other steeds at All-the-Steeds.

Also, don't miss the Yule festival which has a new horse with warsteed appearance and still has barterable last year's yule horse and warsteed appearance. And, for the collectors, Yule festival also has every previous Yule horse available for purchase at 70 mithril coins each. (Yule-festival-2013-wintertide-steed)

Oh yes, and one thing I didn't mention yet, a "Sack of Presents" is the reward once per day for doing at least one Yule festival quest. Personally, every day the lildanas and I try to go to Yule festival and do the "Empty Keg" quest since it takes less than one minute to complete. We get our Sacks of Presents (thank you very much) and move along (it takes about 20 minutes to cycle through all ten Angels, do one quest and get a daily present). The daily presents include things such as 150 marks, 500 marks, 30 medallions, 2 seals, 2-10 festival tokens, a couple of cosmetics, stat tomes, and Danaish got our favorite present, the very rare Hobby Horse! (All-the-Steeds/special-steeds-62).

Danaish rides the Hobby Horse - from Sack of Presents

So, there are lots of potential Yule presents this holiday season. May you find what you seek!
Here now is the December Steed, the Steed of Withywindle. :)

Steed of Withywindle: 
This Steed has an interesting colored hide, nearly pink. The outfit is greenish/yellow elven-style. Oppa! Next we will see what it looks like in a few different colors.

Steed of Withywindle

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default:
Here is the default colors. The outfit is indeed identical, and of course, the courser horse is default grey.

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green:
This is the first time I have ever used hide color Liver Chestnut, lol! To me, it looks like a subtle blend between golden brown and green so I thought it complemented the natural greens of Withywindle. :)

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green

I hope you have a fabulous rest of the year. Y'all come back now. :)

Yule Festival 2013: Wintertide Steed and more

Supergirl rides the Wintertide Steed

Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores,
Welcome Christmas come this way!
Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores,
Welcome Christmas, Christmas day!
Welcome, welcome fahoo ramus, 
Welcome, welcome dahoo damus,
Christmas day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.

Yay! It is the most wonderful time of the year again.
That's right, it's Yule Festival time in Lotro.
and with it comes Yule Horses! 

Last Yule festival, 
showed off a fancy steed (wintry-yule-warsteed),
but could only be bartered by logging in and doing all of the quests on at least 9 of 20 days during Christmas... not a popular design choice (youll-yule-celebrate-2012),
And Yule festival before that saw earlier Frostbluff fun (youll-yule-festival-2011).

Guide: Your itinerary for this Yule festival 2013 as always is brought to you by Goldenstar; fabulous Guide-Maker of Middle Earth. (CSTM/lotro-yule-festival-guide-2013/). I won't repeat all of the details here; I just mostly show the pretty ponies. :)

There are not many "new" things this Yule, and that is totally ok. Sometimes, the familiar is a good place to be, especially since there are so many things for a newcomer to see. New things for 2013 include: horse, warsteed cosmetic, 3 cosmetic outfit pieces, and a title "The Bard". The horse costs 80 tokens, the warsteed costs 100 tokens, the cosmetics cost 135 tokens for all three total, and the title is acquired by doing things in the Frostbluff Theater (my title auto-granted as I logged in from having done everything in years past). 

All the Yule Horses! True or not, I am going to claim that the developers and decision-makers of lotro actively take advice from my blog as several of my top design changes have already come to pass... (Top-11-things-I-would-change-When-I-rule-Middle-Earth). #10 on that list was to make past festival horses available, where I wrote... "I recommend putting all applicable festival horses in the store each festival (those older than the previous year)".

A perfect solution was devised where you can now barter for all previous Yule horses near the entrance gate to Frostbluff! Thank you, thank you. I like this picture of all the previous Yule horses standing together. :)

All the previous Yule horses visit Frostbluff 2013

As the reality hit that one of my long lost horses was finally coming to the stable, it took me about 0.2 seconds to spend the 70 mithril coins to get him. :) Here is a picture of the 2008 Yule Festival horse that I have pined about in multiple articles through the years. As always, you can find all of the other horses in the "All-the-Steeds" section.

Supergirl gets her long lost Yule Festival Steed from 2008

Wintertide Steed:
The Wintertide Steed is the 2013 Yule festival horse. It is easy to acquire as it barters for 80 Festival tokens. As it turned out, I had enough left over tokens from last year to get the horse as I walked in the Frostbluff gate. If you are just starting out, familiarize yourself with Frostbluff, do all the quests, and you will amass a good pile of tokens each day.

The horse is a lovely dapple grey with snowflake pattern on his outfit.

Wintertide Steed

Wintertide Warsteed - Default:
The Wintertide "Warsteed" consists of the one warsteed cosmetic, the Wintertide Caparison. It is the same lovely snowflake pattern as the Wintertide Steed horse. I will show a few more color variations next. The pattern really pops and comes alive with a little color... of course, I do tend to be a bit Vibrant. :)

Wintertide Steed - Default

Wintertide Warsteed - Light Grey and Sea Blue:

Wintertide Warsteed - light grey and sea blue

Wintertide Warsteed - Charcoal and Black:

Wintertide Warsteed - Charcoal and Black

Wintertide Warsteed - Chestnut and Crimson:
I actually went with Black Chestnut hair and Dark Chestnut hide here to give it a little constrast. The crimson really pops, as do many of the colors.

Wintertide Warsteed - Chestnut and Crimson

Wintertide Warsteed - White and Evendim Blue:

Wintertide Warsteed - White and Evendim Blue

Thank you! Thank you for coming to http://www.danania.net/ throughout the year, even just to check up on me. It has been an interesting last few months... and I am excited to possibly have a smidge more time to write about the various things I want to write about in lotro! One thing to get out there quickly... you may or may not have seen that there IS a December steed of the month, the Steed of Withywindle. I do intend to show some pictures, hopefully very soon as December is more than half over. I also wanted to show off the West Rohan horses, and talk about virtues, the new trait system, RKs in the new regime (how to trait, new skills, etc), math updates, Big Battles, Helm's Deep... so many fun things. :)

Take care Free People of Middle Earth and i will see you soon. :)

Steed of the Hammerhand and Helm's Deep

Supergirl rides the Warsteed of the Hammerhand

I was asked recently what I have been doing to prepare for Helm's Deep. o.o Umm... I move inventory around and... I bought Helm's Deep. :D That's about it. It will be a brave new world when I log on to see it what is new next week.

Let's take a look at what I got with my Helm's Deep purchase. I got a horse and some other stuff. For 60$, I get...

• Helm's Deep adventure, 
• 2 titles, 
• 2000 TP, 
• cosmetic armor set, 
• +ten quest slots (so I'm up to 60 quest slots), 
• a crystal of remembrance, 
• a back slot item that gives +25% XP up to level 85, 
• Horse with matching Warsteed.

Here is a picture of the preorder stuff.

I like the goodies fine enough and am of course, pro horse. The crystal of remembrance will be nice to have. The +25% XP does nothing for me but the lildanas enjoyed having it when craft leveling. I will mention how they are doing with their craft experience later (Crafting-to-mordor-part-2).

Here is a look at the Horsie...

Steed of the Hammerhand:
It is a fine horse Lots of plate and chain metal, carries one sword on the right side and saddle bags on both sides. His halter has a little horse on the top of his head. I got a chuckle out of having a horse with a horse hood ornament. :D It is easier to see the hood ornament in the first picture.

Steed of the Hammerhand

Warsteed of the Hammerhand:
The Default is all there is. None of these pieces can be dyed. You either like it or you don't. :)
It is exactly the same as the steed.

Warsteed of the Hammerhand

I hope you have a great time with Helm's Deep. :)

Steed of the Citadel

Supergirl rides the Steed of the Citadel

Hello, hello! For reasons unbeknownst there was no Steed of the month for October. However, we are back on track for November with the Steed of the Citadel! Yay!

You know the drill... all of the other steeds are at the Gallery, All the Steeds. (Ok, I am a bit behind getting all of the latest steeds over into the corral. I will get to it; I promise! ;) Just look around the site and you will find them somewhere close by.)

November's steed is a beautiful one, so let's get right to it.
Steed of the Citadel comes with Saddle, Halter, Leggings, Caparison, and Accessory. It is scheduled to be available through November.

Steed of the Citadel:
I really like this horse. He is a beautiful greyish black hide with a dull green outfit. As you will see in the warsteed outfit, black outlines the dull green. The Steed of the Citadel is packing two shiny axes.

Steed of the Citadel

Here is a top view of the Steed, showing off the flares of the outfit and one of the axes. Both sides look identical with matching axes.

Steed of the Citadel - top view

WarSteed of the Citadel - Default:
The Warsteed default does not seem as showy to me. Let's move on to some of the colors!

Warsteed of the Citadel - Default

WarSteed of the Citadel - Evendim Blue and Black:
I matched the black hide of the original steed but substituted out with a bright Evendim blue to make the outfit pop! 

Warsteed of the Citadel - Evendim blue and black

Here is a top view of the Warsteed, showing off the axe. Hide is white in this one to accentuate the dark outlines.

Warsteed of the Citadel - top view

WarSteed of the Citadel - Red and Bay:
As I mentioned on a recent horse, I really really like the Bay hide color. Bay set with this Red really shows off the outfit. The cover picture at the top is the same Red/Bay set without the halter.

Warsteed of the Citadel - Red and Bay

WarSteed of the Citadel - Rose and White:
The light colors of rose and white define the sharp dark outlines.

Warsteed of the Citadel  - Rose and White

WarSteed of the Citadel - Green and Dark Chestnut:
Hard to go wrong with any of these colors on this horse.

Warsteed of the Citadel - Green and Dark Chestnut

WarSteed of the Citadel - Sea Blue and Sooty:
This look is simililar to one of the others for people who like the Sea Blue. :) Still unique looking.

Warsteed of the Citadel - Sea Blue and Sooty

WarSteed of the Citadel - Yellow and Seal brown:
The Seal Brown is a great golden color also that really compliments the Yellow.

Warsteed of the Citadel - Yellow and Seal Brown

Yah horse!! I know I say it often, but i think this horse might be one of my favorites. :D

Supergirl tames the Steed of the Citadel

Update by Request - White and Evendim Blue: By request from commenter Anonymous, here is the Steed of the Citadel in White and Evendim Blue. We were on location at the entrance to Isengard when we got the message. It really is a gorgeous horse cosmetic. :)

Warsteed of the Citadel - White and Evendim Blue

Update by Request 07/19/14 - Black on Black: Heyhey, by another request here is the Steed of the Citadel in Black on Black. This warsteed is one of my favorites. I have only two Warsteed cosmetic slots and I noticed that this one was still in my slot #2 cue (the most current warsteed is always in my slot #1). For fun, I donned my Batgirl outfit for the all black look.

Warsteed of the Citadel - Black and Black

Warsteed of the Citadel - Black and Black

Supergirl rides the Steed of the Citadel (Black on Black) to the Path of the Dead

Fall Festival 2013: Spooky Steed of the Bat

Supergirl rides the Spooky Bat!

Gracious... I bugs me that I have been so busy lately that I have not written in 30 days. I am still convinced though that my extreme schedule has slackened and mebbe November will be a better month. Interestingly, lotro did NOT have a "steed of the month", breaking a trend that had persisted throughout 2013. However, it is Festival time so we still get a steed for October!

Fall festival is perhaps my favorite of all the festivals. The quests are short, concise, interesting, and give decent rewards for the effort. If I get a free moment, I will write about fall festival soon. Do check out the always excellent guide at CSTM. Fall festival guide link is CSTM: lotro-fall-festival-guide-2013/.

I listed all the Fall festival goodies last year at the link, Fall-festival-goodies.
And, I wrote about some of the fun quests at Fall-festivals-end-and-a-new-beginning.
And the previous year 2011 had lots of pictures at Fun-fall-festival-friends.

On to the Horse!

There are two new horse items to obtain during fall festival 2013: the horse called the "Spooky Steed of the Bat" and a warsteed caparison called the "Spooky Caparison of the Bat". Each of the two costs 60 fall festival tokens.

Doing just the Haunted Burrow quests, you will net in the 24-28 range per day so if you have never been to festival, this may take a few days to get both. Or, you could go to other places (read the CSTM guide, link above) and get a few more, or you can do Inn League and/or Ale Association quests for tradeable badges, or you can use Mithril coins to just repeat quests you like more than once per day. Fall festival is really easy to pile up the tokens.

Spooky Steed of the Bat:
Here is the Spooky steed of the Bat. He has the same flame red eyes that the Mahogany Bay does.

Spooky Steed of the Bat

Here is a better view of the Spooky Steed of the Bat's red eyes. I'm gonna get you.... /boo!

Spooky Steed of the Bat has red eyes. Spooooooky....

Spooky WarSteed of the Bat - Default:
Here is the Caparison mentioned above that is for the warsteed. It is just the one piece: the caparison.

Ok, the black hide and hair is a bit spookier than default grey. It is kinda funny that I am just now noticing that the black emblem on the caparison is possibly a bat, hanging upside down. :)
Let's try a few more looks...

Spooky Warsteed of the Bat - Default

Spooky WarSteed of the Bat - Umber and Chestnut:
Ok, I don't do spooky. Lol. How about a fall-ish shade? Here is a matching of nice browns, umber and chestnut.

Spooky Warsteed of the Bat - Umber and Chestnut

Spooky WarSteed of the Bat - Black and Black:
Ok, this one is a closer approximate of the actual horse. It is black with the caparison dyed black as well. It is a sharp look.

Spooky Steed of the Bat - Black and Black

Spooky WarSteed of the Bat - Purple and White:

How about an anti-spooky? This is a more festive set in purple and white.

Spooky Steed of the Bat - Purple and White

Spooky WarSteed of the Bat - Yellow and Bay:
I went with something more vibrant, but still fall-ish, in yellows. I liked the Bay colored hide here so much that I gave in and got that Bay color set for this matching.

Spooky Steed of the Bat - Yellow and Bay

I hope you have a super and safe Fall festival! I shall see you soon. :)

(BTW: The cover picture at the top is Ered Luin blue with Black hide and ... offwhite,steel grey? hair.)

Steed of Michel Delving

Supergirl rides the Steed of Michel Delving

Time moves on... I didn't write about the Bounders and their project of building a new statue in Michel Delving yet. The short version... Bounder's tokens, from Bounder Bags, dropped randomly from landscape and instance mobs and awarded from certain quests (like festival quests), turn in 1.75 million for a server (at Michel Delving), and get access to Bounder stuff. 1.75 million went faster than you might think. Arkenstone was probably on the last half for servers achieving it a few days ago.

Anywho, what is important is that after the server unlocks the goodies, one can get stuff, including the lovely Steed of Michel Delving for 1500 tokens. The steed comes with a normal horse, plus 5 warsteed pieces: caparison, halter, accessory, saddle and leggings.

Here are some pictures; I will get them into the All the Steeds Gallery soon... :)

Steed of Michel Delving:
In Hobbit-y fashion, this horse is loaded down like a pack mule. There is food and drink for days on the back end of the horse. The standard horse is a reddish brown and white pattern and fancy hobbit decorated.

Steed of Michel Delving

WarSteed of Michel Delving - Default:
Here is the warsteed in default grey. An interesting thing that we have seen before is that this warsteed outfit does NOT dye. It is what it is. You can dye the hide though and I will show a few variations next. Overall, the default grey seems as fine as any. :) I thought the blondes match the gold outfit fairly well, but I haven't gotten those hide colors yet.

Warsteed of Michel Delving - default

WarSteed of Michel Delving - White:

Warsteed of Michel Delving - white

WarSteed of Michel Delving - White, no halter:
The halter matches the outfit well, but my horse wanted to let her hair down.

Warsteed of Michel Delving - white, no halter

WarSteed of Michel Delving - Dark Chestnut:

Warsteed of Michel Delving - dark chestnut

WarSteed of Michel Delving - Steel Grey:

Warsteed of Michel Delving - Steel Grey

WarSteed of Michel Delving - back left:
What does a bounder horse carry around? Let's see... on the left side, I see an iron pot, an hour glass, a lantern, 3 water skins... plus the cask and backpack directly behind the saddle...

Warsteed of Michel Delving - left side

WarSteed of Michel Delving - back right:
...and on the right side, I see an iron skillet, a smoke pipe, a rucksack, and a bag crammed full of veggies. At least we will cook and eat well, I suppose. 

Warsteed of Michel Delving - right side