Red Painted Skeleton Horse and other painted horses

Supergirl and Red Painted Skeleton Horse prepare to fly to Draigoch.

"You have acquired the Red Painted Skeleton Horse skill."

If you follow this blog, you will know that I have been seeking the Red Painted Skeleton Horse for a long time. 

• It was one of only 8 horses I previously was not riding in the Gallery... All the Steeds

• I had it on my "Achievable" list, but was losing hope after searching for nearly a year... October-2012: my-84-of-93-steeds

• The ability to buy it from the lotro store was one of my Top 11 things I would change when I rule Middle Earth... top-11-things-i-would-change-when-i-rule-Middle-Earth!

Red Painted Skeleton Horse sniffs at the camera during photo-shoot

The Search: And, finally on the 87th lootbox I opened searching for it, it happened. The Red Painted Skeleton Horse had come to me! 

No, I didn't open all the 87 lootboxes at once. I periodically buy a few here and there from the AH over the past year, hoping for this horse. Yes, it was easy to remember how many lootboxes because this horse was the only reason I was acquiring lootboxes. :) Patience. Determination. Perseverance. 

I got the Red Painted Skeleton Horse on June 24, 2013. The lootbox text says that this horse has a chance to drop from any of the lootboxes. Mine came from a level 50 lootbox. 

I *WAS* wearing my Erebrandir's Horseshoe, which now contradicts what I said last week about not getting anything good while wearing it. It may have absolutely no bearing, but now I am even more superstitious about wearing it. (u11-hobbit-presents-30-day-review).

I tended to buy level 50 lootboxes lately because when they didn't give me a horse, they might give something useful to my team of lildanas who are all around level 50, plus the AH price for them tends to be ≈ 4g versus the Riddermark lootboxes that were listed ≈ 40g. (lildanas @ crafting-to-mordor-part-2).

I cheer at finally bringing home the Red Painted Skeleton Horse.

Redemption of the Lost: After acquiring 100 other steeds, the search for this one became something of the "Parable of the Lost Sheep" (wiki: Parable_of_the_Lost_Sheep) where "a shepherd leaves his flock of 99 sheep in order to find the one sheep who is lost."

Comparison to other Skeleton Horses: The Red Painted Skeleton Horse is identical in look to its siblings, the Skeleton Painted Horse (white) and the Green Painted Skeleton Horse. The White one is a very rare drop from the Haunted Barrow during Fall festival. The Green one was sold in the lotro store only.

The Green one and the Red one are both +68% speed and the White one is +62% speed.

White...

Painted Skeleton Horse - a good complement to the Red and Green.

Green...

Green Painted Skeleton Horse - a good complement to the Red and White.

Red... 

Red Painted Skeleton Horse - a good complement to the White and Green.

Less math, more ponies!

Alrighty. That last post was a lot of numbers. Let’s change pace. Less math, more ponies! Since it was my birthday recently, I got a new steed or two. Not that I needed a reason to get a steed… just waking up in middle earth is a good reason to go new steed hunting! Here are a few of my recent ones and a few steed pictures I liked.

Here is the Nimble Black Goat. It was the one I got on my birthday. Named Firefoot, this goat is obtained by finishing all deeds in Moria. Those darn kergrims of Skumfil for slayer-deed were the last hold-out.

I started that Moria deed journey at level 60 on February 3, 2011 when I joined a group to enter the Dark Delvings. Derffel, Behni, Tineytim, Augustuss, & Nimitar were there. I think I was supposed to be healing as I was the only healer of the six. Having never healed a group before nor understood the healer traits, skills, or LIs, I can only imagine that I was dead weight in that group. 

April 6, 2012 saw the end of that deed journey as Macrez, Pengladir, Assmunahi and I overpowered and prevailed in Skumfil.

Malledhrim steed. The next day, I went back to Mirkwood and soloed enough repeatables to finally get my Malledhrim steed. It takes 20 Malledhrim gold stars. (I think the repeatables out of Thangulhad and Taur Morvith give 3 gold stars, 25 silver tokens daily... and 25 silver can be traded for 1 gold star). The Malledhrim also have the Smokey Black steed at the same barter price.

There are two steeds available from Stangard. I bartered for the Limlight one, shown here. I will need to go back for the other Stangard one soon. Each barters for 20 gold Anduin tokens. Repeatable quests for gaining gold tokens are... 4 solo quests: 2 in Brownlands, 1 in Rushgore, 1 in the bog east of Rushgore (the queen bug), and 3 fellowship quests in Limlight: 2 at Wailing Hills (spiders and trolls), and 1 to the far west from the ents (tree chopping).

Treasure hunting Goat! I totally need to do a post on the treasure hunt. The lil danas and I had a ball of fun! Of the three steeds obtainable during the treasure hunt, I got only one, this goat. Danadelion got all three; if you let her, she will tell you all about how she is the "hunt-master".

Threanody, who I believe may have hunted at least as much as I did, appears to have fainted from the non-stop digging.

Skeleton Painted steed. After two fall festivals of visiting the haunted burrow, and with all danas searching for nearly 200 visits to the "secret chest" to look for the special skelehorse, I bought this one. Sometimes, when other options run out, you make your own luck. (This link was the first time I had seen it in 2011.... skelehorse post).

Cremello and Green Painted. Here is a shot of MW and I on the Cremello and the green painted steeds. I like the picture. :) (This link was the day I got my Cremello steed... Cremello post).

Hunter steed. I don't usually pass up a steed if i can help it. Here is the hunter steed. I dressed for the occasion to go riding in Dunland. The outfit is the green Rohirrim outfit.

It is hard for my to say that I have a favorite steed. However, my "go-to" steed is the Steed of Minas Ithil. 

Here is MI and me going into a random scary forest. No idea where that is, but it looked pretty and creepy.

And a closeup of us riding around north Dunland somewhere.

Charge! Storming the gates of Isengard!

The next steeds on my to-do list are 

• (1) that other steed from stangard needs a home, for the low low price of 20 Anduin gold tokens, 
• (2) Anniversary steed (Yay! the anniversary party started last night!) requires 40 anniversary tokens, 
• (3) Isengard war steed requires 99 orthanc sigils (looks like I'm 60/99th of the way there),
• (4) Dunedain war steed is obtained by completing all of the deeds in Eriador (I have only Thorog, the Helegrod dragon to beat... "that dragon has my steed!"),
• (5) Wild Mountain goat is obtained by completing all of the deeds of the Savior of Lothlorien: Lumul-nar, Nala-dum, Halls of Crafting, Dar Nadbugud. (I am no where near complete with this one; it is a long-term project.)
• My aware-they-exist-and-currently-so-far-unlikely-as-to-not-make-the-list: Galadhrim war steed (Dol Guldur deeds), Ost Dunhoth war steed (Ost Dunhoth deeds), Horse of many colors (Isengard deeds), Treasure laden steed and Cave-claw masked steed (treasure hunt), Perlino PAX steed (2012 PAX), Red Painted Steed (random loot box), Mahogany Bay and The People's Courser (Rank 9 and Rank 12 Moors steeds), Ale Association goat (AA isn't very nice, and I went with the Inn League).

I think that is it? hahahaha 

...until Asma tells me last night that while opening envelopes, she got a Steed from the Anniversary quest that isn't the anniversary steed. Oy vey! It begins anew...

Skelehorse and Mounted Rear Up

(archived from November 1, 2011)


So many things I wanted to write about today... but after meeting with Althaea last night in the Shire, I had to break this column into press. I really want more emotes. lol   Sadly, I have a knack for not winning lotro lotteries. I once won a pie and 75 silver coins from lottery, but that is about it. The same could be said for my lack of Fall festival skelehorse. Between the lil danas and I, we are going 0-fer-about 75 right now this year in our ability to pull a horse out of the chest... which is what we accomplished all last year, 0-fer-75. 

Last year, I opted not to buy the expensive skelehorse from the store. I have re-visited last year's store strategy... and clearly this past year, I broke trend and bought store horses. I think failing this many times in a row earns me the right to buy a skelehorse... assuming it is sold post-festival. We shall see. Who knows... with one week left, and approximately 36 chances, I might just pull off the previously-seen-as-impossible-odds.

I did get to celebrate as Arbrie got her skelehorse! Here she is with the paint still wet. 

But I digress... what I was also excited about was the Mounted Rear up emote, which I have been told will be sold in stores in the near future. With my luck of lotteries, when you see me mounted-emoting, you will know that cost something. Now to the fabulous Althaea rearing up her Shire pony for the oohs and aahs of the spectators who came to see.

(Horse lovers had posted comments, dutifully recreated @ final-comments)