The Naval Yard and You

The Naval Yard is the major addition to garrisons in 6.2. As part of the quest chain that sends you to Tanaan Jungle, you'll raid a non-instanced version if the Iron Docks and help an Iron Horde defector escape so that he can help you establish a navy.

The Naval Yard is built down by the area where you found the angler for your fishing shack, and a new path out of your garrison will be established so that you can get there more easily.

A series of quests will get you up to speed, though you won't really get into the naval content until you've established your base in Tanaan Jungle.

The Naval Missions share a lot of DNA with follower missions - indeed, they're essentially a new iteration of the same kind of content, but missions will be far longer and you'll have a more limited, but also more customizable set of ships.

Initially, you'll only be able to build a transport, which will take you to Tanaan. Different types of ship will be used to counter particular threats - there's a kind of rock-paper-scissors to this, with Destroyers being effective against Submarines and Battleships being effective against Destroyers.

Unlike followers, ships are built at your base. Your initial few ships will be done in a minute, while normally they'll take 30 minutes to an hour. The resource you'll need to build ships and to send them on missions is Oil, which you'll get for doing certain daily quests in Tanaan, as well as some follower missions, and it appears that you'll eventually be able to build an oil rig to give yourself a constant supply.

If a ship fails a mission, it has a chance to be destroyed, but thankfully, the process of building replacements isn't terribly burdensome.

Green-quality ships will initally just have two characteristics - the type of ship and the crew. For example, Night Elf crews will reduce mission time by 50% and Human crews will increase success chance.

As ships level up, or if you're lucky enough to get an immediate upgrade, you'll get new equipment slots - one for rare and a second for epic. There is a vendor who can sell equipment for your ships, but in order to buy most equipment, you'll have to discover the blueprints somewhere in Tanaan - off of rare mobs, I believe, or from the various factions there.

Naval Missions can take as long as two days, but the rewards are generally more substantial - at least upgrading from green to blue will probably only take a couple of missions.

Additionally, missions will require certain areas to be unlocked. There are particular "Blockade" missions that must be completed in order to open up certain bodies of water, such as a fight against some Horde ships in order to get access to the Zangar Sea. (Actually, at the moment the mission has Alliance naval forces attacking... Alliance ships. I think this is just one of those cases where they designed the Horde version first and then forgot to edit it after copy/pasting. Horde bias I say! Bah!)

Initially, you'll only be able to have five ships (though inactive ships can be "decommissioned" to make room.) After completing fifteen missions, you'll be able to upgrade the Naval Yard to tier 2 (which I have not yet done.)

You'll be able to build Transports right away, and there's an early quest to unlock Destroyers. Other ships will require progress in the Tanaan Jungle faction, though I've already hit Honored with Hand of the Prophet (being a human with a level 3 trading post helps) and so I've already got a battleship.

For your troubles and after some achievements, there is a title reward of "Captain" and a cosmetic (not sure if it's transmog-able) admiral's hat, as well as, eventually, Hellfire Citadel raid caches and items required for the last part of the Legendary chain.