Blackhand is the sort of name you could find attached to a place, weapon or organisation in the reshuffled WoW universe of Warlords of Draenor, but it just so happens to belong to the first chieftain to join the Iron Horde under Grommash Hellscream.
Blackhand and his Blackrock clan occupy the wastes of Gorgrond, which we’ll come to know as a PvE zone in the upcoming expansion. Blizzard have put together a new comic to commemorate the orc’s existence.
It’ll be Blackhand’s forges that produce the weapons and machines designed to hack all of Draenor into little bits – but the warlord shouldn’t be underestimated as a tactician either.
In the comic, Blackhand finds himself outnumbered and overwhelmed by invading ogres. The chieftain exploits every advantage the Blackrock clan has, but is eventually forced to look for help in “unexpected places”.
“Will the price of the Blackrock clan’s survival end up being too high?”, ask Blizzard, before pointing you to a PDF of the comic. It’s penned by in-house story developer Robert Brooks.
We’ll visit the Blackrock orcs’ homeland in Warlords of Draenor, after initial confrontations with the Iron Horde in Shadowmoon Valley or Frostfire Ridge. Gorgrond is a landscape riven geographically – between barren plains and lush jungle – and by ancient grudges. The Blackrocks themselves live in a fortress on the slope of a huge mountain.
Have you cast an eye over Warlords of Draenor’s beta patch notes yet? They promise real change for hunters.