Happy New Year, healers, tankers and facesmashers! And what better way to ring in the new year than by ringing out your epic mount quest? Two weeks ago, we showed our Alliance brethren the way to their epic charger. Now it's time to help those anorexic Blood Knights get their own horse.

WARNING TO ALLIANCE PALADINS: If you value your sanity, do not read any farther. The ease of the Horde epic mount quest, as compared to the Alliance one, will make you cry tears of blood, smash your face into the keyboard, and run wild in the streets with your hatred. Admittedly, smashing your face into the keyboard will help prevent you from being labeled AFK in AV, but do you really want to explain to your boss why you got "Blood Knights Are Pansies" tattooed across your lower back?

Okay? Let's do this!

The first thing you should do is collect the materials you'll need later. While leveling from 55 to 60, you should store away:

• 350 gold: Still cheaper than epic mount training for other classes.
• 40 Runecloth. Easy to farm and cheap to buy.
• 6 Arcanite Bars. You'll need to either a) be a miner, get 6 Arcane Crystals and 6 Thorium Bar and have an alchy friend transmute them for you; b) be an alchemist, buy the mats off the AH and transmute them yourself over six days; or c) blow about 70g in the Auction House. You might also need to get lucky with the timing.
• 10 Sungrass. Even if you're an alchemist, it might be easier to buy than farm -- they cost, like, 2g for the 10.
• 5 Dark Runes. This is the hardest part, as these only drop in Scholomance and aren't common in the AH. However, they're not BOP. The best thing to do is get a level 70 friend -- preferably one who is also an enchanter -- to run Scholomance a couple of times. You can then buy his runes. If you do find some in the AH, they run about 12g on average, although I've never seen them that low myself.
• 1 Azerothian Diamond: Jewelcrafters can prospect this from Thorium Ore. Everyone else should probably pick one up on the AH for about 10g -- or, if none are available, buy some Thorium Ore, find a jewelcrafter and hope you get lucky.
• 1 Pristine Black Diamond: If you desperately want to farm this, get a friend or two and kill the elite felguards and dreadlords in the southern Blasted Lands. The rest of us lazy bums can find it for wildly varying AH prices; it's been seen from about 20 to 150 gold. On the plus side, if your guild was around pre-BC, you probably have one or more of these sitting in the guild bank. Ask!

When you hit 60, head to Knight-Lord Bloodvalor in the Silvermoon City pally area. He'll tell you that Lady Liadrin, the Blood Knight Matriarch, wants to talk to you. Head over to her and she'll explain the point of the visit. Liadrin has been observing your progress through the levels. She is considering sponsoring you for membership in the elite circle of Blood Knight Masters, known for their "Thalassian Charger" mounts. She makes it out to be a really prestigious position, but since it gets offered to everyone who can blindly stumble their way through 60 levels, it's got to be pretty easy.

After you accept, she'll tell you that she has some tasks for you, ordered from "easiest to most difficult." Your first task is to help keep the Light under control by ... uh, money. You need to bring 150g, 40 Runecloth, 6 Arcanite Bars, 10 Sungrass and 5 Dark Runes to Lady Liadrin. If you collected them earlier, this shouldn't be a problem -- just run to your bank.

Your next task is very paladinish: go fight the Scourge! You need to head to a scourge camp in Eastern Plaguelands, just southeast of the entrance to Ghostlands, and finish off 15 Scourge Siege Engineers and destroy three of their "meat wagons" (ew.) They're very weak mobs, which is good, because you'll be pulling more than one at a time. After they're dead and exploded, head back to Silvermoon.

And ... Liadrin sends you to Eastern Plaguelands once again. Get used to it. This time, you need to go into Tyr's Hand and steal a vial of holy water to show those uppity Scarlet Crusade types who's boss. All the Tyr's Hand guys are elite, so this might be a good time to bug a higher-level friend for some help, or team up with another pally in the area. You'll need some assistance for the final stage as well, so begin asking your guildies (and people in the area) if anyone would like to do the pally epic mount quest in Stratholme. You really only need one other person for this part, level 55 and up preferred.

Tyr's Hand is in the southeastern corner of EPL. Clear up until you see a small building on the left through the front gate. Go through the door, head to the wing on the left, and go through the door on your right. You'll find two Enchanters and one Cleric. Kill them, loot the Holy Water from the plate on the desk, and skedaddle. There are a couple of tricks that might let you solo this, however. If you have the apple of disguise from the Nathanos's Ruse questline, you can skip all the mobs until you have to fight the Enchanters and Cleric by disguising yourself as a Scarlet Crusader. If you have the Mechanical Yeti or Abominable Greench pets, you can send them in to fight for you while you loot the holy water. Die, rez, and it's all yours. Some people soloed it by bringing consumables and blowing all their cooldowns, but ... eh.

Head back to Silvermoon City with the Holy Water. On your way through town, stop at Zalle's Reagents in the western Bazaar and pick up the 50g Arcane Catalyst, and go to Darlia's Poison Supplies in Murder Row and grab the 150g Crepuscular Powder. You'll need these for the next portion of the quest. Grab the Pristine Black Diamond and Azerothian Diamond from your bank as well.

Liadrin tells you that the "twisted zeal" of the Scarlet Crusade has tainted the holy water, making it ideal for your purpose. However, everything's not ready yet -- you need some reagents to mix with the water. This is where you give up the Crepuscular Powder, Arcane Catalyst, and the two types of Diamonds.

Finally, Liadrin explains what you actually have to do to get your mount. You need to go to the Alonsus Chapel, where the Order of the Silver Hand was founded, which has also miraculously survived the destruction of Stratholme. The Blood Knights have figured out that an eternal flame protects the chapel from the undead. You need to douse this light with your tainted holy water, burning the chapel and ... well, basically saying "Screw you!" to Uther's ghost. So the Alliance has to free a captive horse from a Death Knight master and tame it to your will, while the Horde engages in some petty vandalism to show up the Alliance paladins? Sounds about right.

You WILL need help for this one. You can two-man it with a decent friend, but it might be tough. I two-manned it at 61ish with a 70 rogue, and we had to try it twice and blow all our cooldowns to get it finished. If you're going to duo it, I would recommend bringing a 70 paladin or a 70 druid, as they're very versatile classes. Comments on Wowhead show a 60 pally doing it with a 57 druid and two 60 pallies doing it together, but it could be difficult for the average player. Other than that, you can three-man it with any level. If you're going the 3, 4 or 5-man route, try to have a tank, healer and DPS, unless you have, like, four 70s helping you out.

Go through the locked "service entrance" door east of the regular Strat entrance. If you don't have a rogue, an engineer or the key, this could be a problem. You'll need to clear one group of undead mobs before you can head into the Alonsus Chapel on your right. Go inside the chapel and douse the flame. No, of COURSE you're not done! The guardian of the chapel (Aurius) will attack you. Take him out with your friends. As you turn to leave, you'll discover that five ghostly members of the Silver Hand have come to mete out justice upon you.

They're all level 60 elites, but there's one you should definitely target first. Vicar Hieronymus has only 2/3 the hitpoints of the other paladins, and he seems to heal the others. (Or at least that's what the Wowhead comments say. I can't remember their names myself.) A good strategy is to stand back and heal while a higher-level friend takes out the guardians. Crowd control is an excellent idea here, so sapping, sheeping and trapping are all options. If you're a protadin, you can tank them if you've got a good healer.

Once the flame is doused and everyone is dead, the chapel will burn to the ground and you'll get a completed quest notice. Liadrin will reward you with 8300 experience, a Blood Knight tabard, the rank of Blood Knight Master, and (most importantly) your Thalassian Charger. Go forth and look pretty!