The Tundra and Mountain Tauntaun are two classic mounts in Star Wars: The Old Republic that can be acquired either through a lump sum of credits, or through another less traditional acquisition method for players interested in acquiring some animal mounts the old fashioned way! Though there are quite a few these days, in earlier versions of the game these tauntauns would have likely been the first non-speeder vehicle most players would acquire. Read on for tips on how to get your own!

Thank you player Zahk for writing this guide nad mapping out where to find the taun taun nests, to make it easier for players to get a Tauntaun mount!

Step 1: Know Your Options

To start this Tauntaun wrangling journey, head to your main starter base on Hoth and somewhere near the exit to the outdoors should be two NPCs – The Tauntaun Handler, and the Tauntaun Trainer. Both NPCs have access to a Tauntaun each – the Handler has his Tundra Tauntaun, while the Trainer has her Mountain Tauntaun. It should be noted that while the Tundra Tauntaun costs 5 less Data (a currency we’ll talk about soon) than the Mountain Tauntaun’s 20, the Tundra Tauntaun is only purchaseable by subscribers. Makes sense why it’s a little discounted, then.

In addition, the Tauntaun Trainer sells 2 items other than the Mountain Tauntaun, seen above. First is the Tauntaun Domestication Data. This data is what you will need to use to purchase your Tauntauns, 20 for the Mountain Tauntaun and 15 for the Tundra for a total of 35. Though not really in the spirit of the original aquisition method, those looking to skip the grind can simply walk up to the vendor at the Hoth main base and spend credits on the Domestication Data needed. Doing it this way, you can walk away with both Tauntauns immediately for 3.5 million credits.

For those looking to do this the original intended way, or those simply looking to save some credits, the last item the Trainer sells are Tauntaun Lures. These funky little fruits are just 500 credits a pop, and will be the items you need to use to gather your own data out in the field! So, if your intention is to go get all of your data on your own, you don’t have to buy any of the Data here at the trainer, but you WILL need plenty of lures. How many is up to RNG, as there’s only a chance your lure will work and produce data. To be extra frugal, you could start by only buying the amount you need left at the time, so 35 on your first outing, and then (35 – your collected data) each resupply. The old predicted success rate per lure was about 20% though, so feel free to grab plenty if you’re commited to this.

Step 2: Go Do Some Field Research!

If you’ve decided to buy your data, great job moneybags you can skip this step. For everyone else, once you’ve got your lures in hand you can head to Clabburn Tundra to go nest hunting! Clabburn Tundra will be the area on Hoth South of the Whiterock Wastes that Republic players start in, and north of the Icefall Plains that Imperial players start in. For the record, there are six useable Tauntaun nests for this task – ONE in the Whiterock Wastes, TWO in the Icefall Plains, and THREE in Clabburn Tundra. Most players who knock this out quickly will stick to the Tundra as it’s equidistant for both factions and has the most nests, but all three will be shown here. We recommend turning on Friendly NPC names if they aren’t – seeing the Taun Fawns names will help show you the nest as you get near.

Clabburn Tundra Nests

Whiterock Wastes Nest

Icefall Plains Nests

The Process

Once you’ve gotten to a nest, target each Taun Fawn and use a lure on them. Even if other players have been doing this ahead of you, the cooldown on luring a fawn is your own, so feel free to do this with friends and you won’t get in eachothers way. Most times, you’ll get a screen message saying your lure failed to attract a Tauntaun to the nest. But sometimes, in the event it succeeds, you’ll see a friendly Tauntaun arrive! Unfortunately you’ll also attract a Gold-Level Wampa Predator that immediately comes to slap your Tauntaun friend.

As a silver-level Tauntaun, he is completely incapable of being protective and will require your help to survive this assault. If you stand by and watch this senseless wampa on tauntaun violence reach its sad conlusion, you will have wasted a successful lure. If however you have proven yourself a paragon to Tauntaun kind by helping to attack this wampa (you don’t need to do amazing damage, even a dps companion is probably enough) you will successfully kill the villain and be awarded ONE TAUNTAUN DOMESTICATION DATA! The cooldown on luring a Tawn Fawn is roughly 30 minutes per character, so either do a daily sweep of the nests, or spam the three easily reached nests in Clabburn Tundra with multiple characters – the domestication data is tradeable so you can simply mail them all to one funnel character this way!

Step 3: Success!

After farming (or buying) 15 Data for your Tundra, 20 Data for your Mountain, or 35 Data for both Tauntauns, you can simply hand em’ in to the vendors at the start of our journey! Congratulations on your new reptomammalian steed! Ride into the snowdrifts triumphantly and stay warm out there!

Tauntaun Mounts

Did you know there are a bunch of other tauntaun mounts in the game? From the taun taun nests, there are the Tundra Tauntaun and Mountain Tauntaun.

You can also earn a special  Strike Force Tauntaun as a guaranteed reward for completing the Oricon planetary storyline, which requires that you run the Dread Fortress and Dread Palace operations after you complete the solo part of the story. You must also have Legend rank with the Oricon reputation faction in addition to completing the quest to actually equip the mount.

There’s also a whole bunch of Cartel Market Tauntauns.