• Anything high damage
• Karlssons
• Quickload/Fortify

SHOOT IT IN THE MUSTACHE!!!

Seriously, just shoot this thing. Bring Karlssons, bring quickload/fortify, and just shoot it in the face. You can try to stop the tubes from going into the little towers and healing him, you can try shooting the flying compartment he jettisons, but it doesn’t matter. Just shoot him in the face. Fortify after every mini-cutscene because it’ll un-fortify you, then get back to shooting him.

Too easy. In fact, you don’t need anything after this, we guarantee it. Just shoot it in the face.

If you’re trying to farm the level for loot, just place the repair crane like the game suggest, then have your way with the level.

• Snipers
• Machine guns
• Artillery

This is one of the most entertaining levels in the DLC, so enjoy it! Foundry is divided into one set of eight waves and one set of ten. The first set occurs outside with A filtering all sorts of enemies through the brush and Martian trees, and B sending enemies single file down a slot car track.

The first stage is very straightforward. All you should place this first set of waves is a machine gun turret on either side of the base. You can upgrade them if you feel like you need more firepower (or if you have lower level loot still) but don’t go all out. At most, a dampener and two machine guns (upgraded once, MAYBE twice if you need it) should be all you place here. Beyond that, SHOOT STUFF! Seriously, these early waves are very fun because of how enemies come at the base, just optimize splash damage. If you can’t bring Artillery, then bring a grenade launcher, you’ll need something with splash here at least. Also, beware aerial enemies.

The second stage is a lot more dynamic. Once the second stage starts, two waves show up at A & B still, so don’t run on past them and die for it. Once you get to wave 3, or rather before it, and the McKinley stops moving, place a line of machine guns right in front of it from the left ramp all the way to the right ramp and upgrade them as much as possible. Yeah. Do it. This strategy is very thorough and ensures all aerials and noids are completely irrelevant, as they should be, the jerks.

After the awesome gun defense is set up, you’ll want dampeners on both sides as well as a Mine Layer for both D and F as Breakers will show up a few times there. From there, players should watch for Artys and Amps, and overall enjoy their experience on this level because it’s fun! Mostly because you get to mad drop machine guns. Who doesn’t want to do that?

Wave breakdown

Wave 1: B: Resistors, S: Snipe Tuners
Wave 2: A: Cathys (x3), B: Tommies
Wave 3: A: Resistors, S: Aerials, A: Tommys, Resistors
Wave 4: A: Blitzers (x3), B: Resistors & Jacbos, Blitzers
Wave 5: S: Noids, B: Tommys, A: Tommys, S: Snipe Tuners
Wave 6: B: Bertha & Knobs, S: Noids & Aerials,
Wave 7: A: Blitzers (x3), B: Blitzers, Resistors
Wave 8: A: Knobs (x2, Cathys, B: Willie & Jacobs, A: Resistors & Tommys

Wave 1: B: Resistors & Tommies, S: Noids
Wave 2: B: Aerials, D & F: Tommies
Wave 3: D: Breakers, C: Noids, E: Breakers
Wave 4: D & E: Blitzers, F: Tommys
Wave 5: F: Arty, E: Resistors & Jacobs
Wave 6: C: Aerials (x2) D: Cathys, Breakers,
Wave 7: D: Blitzers, F: Burst Transmitters, Snipe Tuners
Wave 8: C: Aerials, F: Noids, C: Noids, Aerials, E: Resistors & Jacobs,
Wave 9: F: Arty, E: Burst Transmitters, D: Tommys,
Wave 10: D: Breakers, E: Amplifier, C: Aerials, F: Amplifier, E: Blitzers, Resistors & Jacobs

Do

• Do what you must to defend in the early game
• Bring an Assault if you want

Don’t

• Waste too much money early
• Bring flak, just use machine guns

• SNIPERS!
• Machine guns

Settlement. The single most difficult map in all of Iron Brigade history. Yeesh.

Settlement is huge, the largest ever, and it shows. Everyone will be wearing a hat for the most part, with one person sticking to Green and Blue, one person at Orange, and one person roaming. We heavily advise players not to use an Assault class or Fortify/Quickload as mobility is an incredibly important part of this map for many reasons. Let’s talk about what’s new and what to expect.

This map features Cathys, a new enemy which behaves much like Knobs but they go for players instead of towers. Ultimately they’re the most annoying thing in the universe, and, along with the massive abundance of knobs on this map, warrant a profuse employment of machine guns. Double machine guns at least at both blue and green, triple at orange (upgrade these things) just to make sure that Knobs, Cathys and let’s not forget Aerials and Noids are dealt with constantly. This is just pure base defense, we’re talking about survivability round-to-round. Supplement these machine guns with dampeners. You may not want to upgrade them, the ramps/pathways at Green and Blue are small and knobs will likely take them anyways, but orange will need upgrades for sure.

We can’t stress enough how serious it is to keep these machine guns running throughout because as a player you will likely spend lots of time hunting down Jacobs, Artys, Volt Droppers and trying to reach other players who have gone down. If you typically find yourself dying and don’t play carefully, or you don’t have a Mark V/IV (DLC version, basically) chassis you should consider a repair crane.

Beyond that, Volt Droppers are super powerful and painful here. Their damage hasn’t been altered, but since each base represents 1/3rd of your health, the VD ends up doing three times as much damage to your overall base health. That means sniper turrets, sniper rifles, sniper… snipe everything! Seriously! It’s wise to bring an engineering chassis (Selker) for almost exclusively sniper turret placement and damage control on turrets after Knobs and other jerks.

A HUGE piece of this map is the Decoys. There’s a million ways to work these, but we can’t give you solutions for everything so we’ll give you our strategy and suggestions worth exploring as well. Both of the decoys must be used, the one near Orange should be used on wave 12 or the Artys will destroy your bases. Activate it at the start of the wave then rush the Artys. If the decoy survives, great, if not, no worries. The other Decoy at green should be activated on the last wave. This one can be done with some finesse, if you have scrap place some machine gun turrets there to help deal with the mass of knobs and aerials that are going to rush that decoy. Beyond that strategy, you can have both of them HEAVILY defended and activate them long before those crucial boss waves, giving you more room for damage during boss waves. We don’t recommend activating them to counter VDs as they will hit your base anyways.

Good luck. This level is hard. Expect to lose on your first try even with our strategy. You need good loot, there’s two ways about that.

Wave breakdown

Wave 1: B: Tommies (x2)
Wave 2: A & B: Cathys, B: Cathys
Wave 3: D: Aerials & Noids
Wave 4: A: Resistors & Jacobs, B & C: Resistors
Wave 5: B & C: Cathys & Blitzers D: Aerials,
Wave 6: D: Noids, C: Tommies,
Wave 7: A: Resistors & Jacobs, Aerials
Wave 8: B: Bertha, Knobs, Cathys, C: Knobs
Wave 9: C: Tommies, D: Aerials,
Wave 10: Volt Dropper, D: Aerials, A & C: Cathys,
Wave 11: B: Resistors & Jacobs, A: Cathys, B: Cathys,
Wave 12: B: Arty & Jacobs (x2), D: Noids
Wave 13: C: Tommies, B: Tommies, A: Tommys,
Wave 14: B: Cathys & Knobs (x2)
Wave 15: A: Tommies & Arty, B: Bertha & Jacobs, Cathys, D: Noids & Aerials, Volt Dropper

Do

• SNIPERSSS!!!
• Heavily protect orange
• Build a repair crane if needed

Don’t

• Die in the middle of no where
• Activate decoys without a reason
• Bring artillery, it’s useless here

• Snipers
• Grenade Launchers
• Shotguns

• Shotguns
• Mine layers
• Mortars

Here we are on Mars! Everything’s so red and pretty, right? Let’s get down to brass tacks. The big key to Mars Landing is defending two central locations: where A and B collide, and where C and D collide. All throughout the base from B to the end of C’s path will need shotguns. Resistors will line up along the ship if they get through, so it’s important to keep the damage on them and spread evenly. The reason we’re taking shotguns here instead of machine guns for core base defense is the lack of draw for most of the map, machine guns won’t have much time to layer on damage due to lots of map obstructions, so it’s better to have the damage high and concentrated.

Beyond base defense there are those tricky situations, yes? Breakers and Amplifiers pour out of B, so it’s important to put a mine layer on B the round before or during the first Amplifier (Wave 8). Eventually, one should go on A as well (near the base) and at the collision of C and D, and along D where the Tommys fire from (just across the open space behind the base, you’ll notice a break along the ledge). A mortar between A and B, and overlooking C (in the aforementioned open space) makes for great extra damage, but isn’t necessary if you don’t have the scrap.

There aren’t THAT many Jacobs on this map, but do be sure to take them out. Luckily there’s no Knobs or aerials, so shotguns are incredibly potent here and we encourage bringing things that do tons of damage. There’s not much room to damage enemies before they get to the base unless you bring snipers, so be sure to bring things with shock if you have any. Always search out and destroy burst transmitters and Amplifiers as they’ll be a big issue here, but for the most part this map shouldn’t be too tough as long as your base defenses are potent.

Wave breakdown

Wave 1: A: Resistors, C & D: Blitzers,
Wave 2: D: Resistors & Tommys,
Wave 3: D: Snipe Tuners, C: Resistors, A: Resistors,
Wave 4: C: Breakers, Blitzers, A: Resistors,
Wave 5: D: Tommys, C: Resistors & Jacobs,
Wave 6: C: Burst Transmitter, D: Snipe Tuners,
Wave 7: C & D: Breakers, A: Breakers, D: Blitzers
Wave 8: B: Amplifier, Burst Transmitters C: Resistors
Wave 9: B: Breakers (x2) C: Resistors & Jacobs (x2)
Wave 10: D: Snipe Tuners, Tommys, C: Resistors
Wave 11: D: Big Willie & Jacobs, A: Resistors
Wave 12: C & A: Blitzers, B: Breakers
Wave 13: B: Amplifier, Burst Transmitters, D: Tommys, A: Resistors,
Wave 14: A, B & C: Burst Transmitters, D: Resistors
Wave 15: B: Amplifier, C: Willie & Jacobs, A: Willie & Jacobs, B: Amplifier, A: Resistors

Do

• Lay several shotguns along the base
• Build early coverage on D for Tommys
• Stop Amplifiers and breakers at B

Don’t

• Run too far from the base
• Over-protect B, one mine layer is fine
• Upgrade mortars, level 1 will suffice