WARDOGS FOB Defense: Layout and Anti-Air

Everything below needs the large hammer, which unlocks at support level 8. If you are still on the medium hammer, build walls and gates and let a higher-level teammate mount the weapons.

The three defensive weapons, and what each is for

Build a compact anti-air position

A Forward Operating Base costs $7,500 to place, and from there you can wall in an anti-air position using only what the large hammer and Recon Tower give you, no vehicle base required. This layout leans on Brimstone walls, which are stronger and taller than basic blocks, for the perimeter.

To reach the gun once it is built, climb the tower, jump onto the Brimstone wall, aim for the corner, and spam the jump key to scramble up onto the AA gun.

Target the enemy's big-ticket builds first

Aiming, range, ammo and whether shells can kill a FOB are all in the mortar guide. From a defender's seat, the question is what to hit. When you shell an enemy FOB, do not spread damage evenly. Hit the things that hurt you most, in order: their anti-air and CIWS, so your helicopters can operate, then their drill, so you steal the Hot Zone fight, and their spawn vehicle, which is worth a lot of money to destroy. If they start building mortars of their own, those jump to the top of the list, because a mortar duel is won by whoever silences the other first.

Build so one shell cannot wipe you

Space your drills and weapons apart. A tight cluster means a single enemy artillery strike deletes all of them at once, and you lose the whole investment in one hit. An unfinished build has far fewer hit points than a complete one, so finish your CIWS and anti-air quickly. Spacing footprints, airlock gates and the core-to-perimeter build order are in the FOB layout guide.

Shelter layout that survives a bombardment

Put your drills, two fit, inside an Indirect Fire Shelter so mortar and artillery splash cannot reach them. Build guard towers on the corners for vision, and strip the tower interior so you have safe access to the roof. Outside the walls, place hedgehogs to stop vehicles climbing over, then barbed wire beyond them. Barbed wire and sandbags can now sit on top of Bremmer walls, which makes a cheap second line on the wall itself. Barbed wire no longer pays cash or XP for kills, so build it to steer attackers, not to farm. Raise the Vanguard CIWS and Talon 9K-SAM on sandbags behind tier-2 walls. If the shelter ceiling gets hit mid-bombardment, repair it from underneath.

For the entrance, use a gated airlock of two or three gates, 400 to 600 supplies at 200 each. Breaching it sets off a raid announcement, which gives you time to react. Hammers can no longer breach gates, but the Halligan bar can, so an attacker no longer needs explosives to get through; the airlock now buys time, not a hard stop.

Layer your anti-air

Cover long range with the Talon and short range with the CIWS. One gunner rarely beats a good pilot, but two SAM operators do.

What does anti-air cost to keep firing?

Season 2 made the Talon cheaper to place and four times dearer to feed. The numbers below are straight from the patch: a restock is the ammo supply one missile or shell takes.

The Talon is only cheaper than before for its first two missiles (650 + 2 x 200 = 1,050 against 1,000 + 2 x 50 = 1,100); from the third on it costs more, and its reload went from 2 to 5 seconds. Spend the cheap placement on a Talon you will feed, and let the CIWS carry the close layer. The Vanguard CIWS dropped from 1,500 to 1,200 to place, but it now takes 2.25 times longer to kill a spawn vehicle, so treat it as a helicopter and infantry gun, not an APC killer. Check the FOB's supply bars on the map before a long barrage, since a dry weapon is a dead weapon.

Seed the approaches with cheap deployables

Walls slow a ground rush; mines and traps punish it.