[Updated on January 2, 2023]
We've already mentioned the grand return of Rattlegore as part of the special Hearthstone hotfix patch, but it also definitely deserves its own place for everyone to see; plus there's some extra info to be shared. After all, this is somewhat of a precedent: the promise has been kept and a solution has been delivered. It might not be to everyone's liking or - in some very particular cases - necessarily the most fair option, but for most Mercenaries players out there, this particular event restoration should more than do the trick and quell any of the previous frustrations.
If you are not familiar with the whole story, the short form goes like this: special limited-time Rattlegore event was initially announced to last until November 29, but then unexpectedly disappeared a week earlier on November 22. At first, the Hearthstone team seemed to dismiss the incident as not such a big deal, but the resulting justified outrage from the community eventally prompted them to promise to do something about it. For a longer version of this story and Blizzard vs player reactions, see:
And now we're back to where we originally started:
Quote From Blizzard In Patch 24.6, the Rattlegore event ended a week earlier than initially published, resulting in some players missing their chance to complete all the event Tasks. We’re bringing the event back with plenty of time for everyone to finish. From now until January 3, you can complete 10 special Rattlegore event Tasks to earn Rattlegore, two random Rattlegore Portraits, and 700 Mercenaries Coins!
Now that's a pretty generous extension. It's not being brought back just for the remaining week, but more than four weeks total until January 3, 2023 (presumably ending at 10 AM PST for all servers). Which will make it by far the longest running special event in the brief history of Hearthstone Mercenaries.
However, be careful if you haven't yet completed any of the tasks: since Patch 25.0 arrived on November 29, it's been possible to find Rattlegore in packs along with all the other Mercs. And that might (have) cost you a different Epic character.
Welcome Back, Rattlegore
If you have already completed all of the tasks before the sudden cancellation, this has no real bearing on you. You won't see anything changing in your Village, and Toki will keep offering the usual daily task. For anyone else, the Rattlegore quest-chain has once again replaced that slot. If you have only completed some tasks previously but not all of them, you get to pick up where you left off. And be able to proceed at your own pace.
Quote From Blizzard The Rattlegore event will pick up right where you left it last time the event was live. That means nobody will need to redo any Tasks they already finished and players who already finished the entire event will not be impacted by this update at all. Players who received Rattlegore outside of the event period and have not yet completed the event Task rewarding the base Rattlegore will receive a random Rattlegore Portrait instead when they complete that Task. Players who already have all Rattlegore Portraits and then complete an event Task awarding a Rattlegore Portrait will instead receive 75 Rattlegore Coins.
Receiving a portrait instead of an actual Mercenary could be seen as rather unfortunate. Hopefully there weren't many players opening their packs and pulling Ratlegores between Tuesday and now.
All Rattlegore Event Tasks
So now might be a good time to remind anyone who is just starting out what is there to expect:
| Visitor | Task name | Description | Rewards | Quote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event Rattlegore | Task 1: Your Mother's a Nice Person | Complete Moroes fight without ever using Taunt ability. | 50 Rattlegore Coins | Rattlegore. Rattlegore. Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 2: Quackery | Complete Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon Bounty with at least 4 Orcs in The Darkmoon Troupe. | 50 Rattlegore Coins, 25  Neeru Fireblade Coins | Rattlegore? Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 3: Time is Fire | Complete Prince Malchezaar fight without spawning any Malchezaar's Imps in Felwood. | Mercenary: Rattlegore (Variation 745) | RAHTtle gore? | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 4: No Pathetic Mercs | Complete C'Thun Bounty with all your Mercs alive in The Darkmoon Troupe. | 50 Rattlegore Coins, 50  C'Thun Coins | Rattlegore. Rattlegore. Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 5: Clown Fiesta | Complete Heroic Silas Darkmoon Bounty with at least 4 Beasts in The Darkmoon Troupe. | 75 Rattlegore Coins | Rattlegore? Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 6: Guests Only | Complete Curator Bounty using 6 unique Merc types in The Blackrock Mountain. | 75 Rattlegore Coins, 50  Murloc Holmes Coins, 25 Neeru Fireblade Coins | RAHTtle gore? | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 7: Wash Your Hands | Cast Rattlegore's Rusted Blades at 10 speed or slower. | Mercenary: Golden Rattlegore (Random) | Rattlegore. Rattlegore. Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 8: I Love Spells! | Complete Heroic Babbling Book fight using all abilities Spell Schools. | 100 Rattlegore Coins | Rattlegore? Rattlegore. | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 9: Just One Night | Complete Heroic Echo of Medivh Bounty with at least 3 Demons in the Felwood. | 50 Medivh Coins, 50 Murloc Holmes Coins, 50 Prince Malchezaar Coins | RAHTtle gore? | |
| Event Rattlegore | Task 10: Over 9000 | Trigger 5 Deathblows using Rattlegore's BONEFLAME!!! in a single match. | Mercenary: Golden Rattlegore (Random) | Rattlegore. Rattlegore. Rattlegore. |
(Source)
After all this time, there is a lot of advice out there as to how to best approach each of the 10 tasks. Old Guardian has a whole dedicated set of YouTube videos prepared just for the Rattlegore Event, and there are many relevant threads to be found on the Hearthstone Mercenaries subreddit or even on our forums (that evil Babbling Book). Feel free to share your own tips and tricks if you've already been through the whole thing! It might just end up making somebody's life a whole lot easier.
Rattlegore's (and Chromie's) Coins and Bounties
While this wasn't listed in Blizzard's 25.0 Patch notes along with the announcement of Chromie being the newest free Mercenary to be featured on March of the Lich King's Rewards Track, players had plenty of time to explore the existing Zones and find out that both Rattlegore and Chromie coins have indeed been added to a few chosen Bounties and are now grindable in-game.
Here is where you can find them:
Rattlegore
Netherspite - Blackrock Mountain Zone
Yogg-Saron - The Darkmoon Troupe Zone
Chromie
Echo of Medivh - Felwood Zone
Good hunting out there!
Happy to see the special event returning and satisfied with the resolution, or would you have done anything differently? How many Rattlegore tasks still left for you to complete?
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Comments
I was heavily invested in Mercenaries since the launch -- I did my daily missions every day, all the special events, and I carefully collected all the mercs. I loved that it was nice time-filler game with no PVP pressure; I work from home, and being able to pause a game if I got an urgent email or phone call was great!
However, the fact that there were so *many* missteps along the way was disconcerting, starting from the disastrous and uninformative initial presentation, to all the fumbling regarding progression and unbalanced content (remember when you would need to cancel a run because a Dopplegangster showed up in your path?).
The monetization model was also completely out of whack: 20 bucks for a bunch of useless coins? 25 bucks for a freaking portrait? The only time I spent real money was on the Prelaunch and Welcome bundle; the rest was paid with gold.
Their initial response to the Rattlegore incident was the final straw. It proved to me that Mercenaries is a failed experiment, and will never be considered a priority by Blizzard. I fully expect Mercenaries to go into maintenance mode within a year or two. All the time I dedicated to Mercenaries has now gone to Marvel Snap!, which does everything Mercenaries wants to do, but ten times better and with a team of developers that actually cares.
I agree that the mode has been pretty badly handled. However, I've still had a lot of fun playing it. I have spent very little money on it, but through grinding, I have collected every single Merc and have only 4 that are not maxxed out (plus I have 71 packs waiting for the next batch). The coin exchange system is definitely weighted against us, but considering that you can generate coins for free, without limit, through daily play, it's not as bad as I expected it would be. The main thing I wish they'd add is a pity timer for legendaries (BASE mercs, NOT skins).
Nice to see them doing the right thing here. I play Mercenaries quite a bit, and completed this event way back when, but I'm glad they've fixed this mistake for those who need it.
I wonder why they made it last for so long and not just say for two extra weeks. Guess they wanted to make damn sure the community wouldn't still be pissed off. I would still think two more weeks would be plenty of time unless perhaps you made zero progress before it ended the first time.
It's definitely more than anyone might've expected, but you won't hear me complaining. Now it might have the highest rate of completion of them all.
Personally, I think it is also due to the fact that Blizzard employees (usually) do not work around the X-mas holidays anyways and they might as well extend this event until the start of next calendar year for that matter. Secondly, the extended period might regenerate a little bit of goodwill again.