The best early game weapons in WARDOGS

Why the rifles are losing

On paper the assault rifles are fine. Your M4 needs four rounds to the chest and gets there in 0.22 seconds. The problem is the third round.

Recoil on the 5.56 platforms climbs hard enough that the burst which kills on a range wall sprays over a shoulder at thirty metres, and a missed fourth round is a lost fight. We spent the alpha blaming ourselves for that before we sat down and compared the numbers.

So the lobby has drifted to guns that either do not move or do not need a fourth shot. Semi-automatics and shotguns pay their damage per trigger pull. SMGs put so many rounds into the time an AR spends settling that the recoil never gets a say. Here is what that looks like on the ground.

AMP-9, the one to buy first

AMP-9

01

SMG · 9x19mm · 900 RPM

The cheapest gun in the game that reliably wins a fair fight.

Nine hundred rounds a minute out of a gun that weighs 1.4 kilos and barely climbs. Five hits to the chest is about a quarter of a second, and with flesh rounds loaded it is three hits and 0.13. Two to the head on the same rounds. Level 1 armor slows you to seven, which at this fire rate is still under half a second.

One catch. Flesh rounds fall apart against plate, so the magazine that deletes an unarmored player needs nine hits through a Level 1 vest. Aim at the pelvis instead and it stays at three, or carry Standard once armor shows up in your lobby.

Vendor price

$900

Chest, unarmored

5 shots · 0.27s

Head, unarmored

3 shots · 0.13s

Chest, Level 1 armor

7 shots · 0.40s

Chest, flesh rounds

3 shots · 0.13s

Head, flesh rounds

2 shots · 0.07s

Full damage out to

100 m

AMP-9 statsRun the AMP-9 on flesh rounds

MP43, four hundred dollars of one-shot

MP43

02

Shotgun · 12 Gauge · 900 RPM

Two barrels, two chances at an instant kill, for the price of a magazine.

Buckshot makes it a doorway gun. Slugs make it a rifle. A rifled slug carries 105 damage before multipliers, which is a single hit to a bare chest and a single hit through a Level 1 helmet, and it flies flat enough to take fights no shotgun has any business taking.

Aim chest, and mean it. The stomach reads lower and turns your one-shot into two. Against Level 1 and Level 2 vests you need two hits, and against Level 3 plate it stretches to three. Those two barrels give you the second attempt without a reload, which is most of why the gun feels so much better than it costs.

Watch the budget

Slugs run $200 for six. The gun is cheap and the ammunition is not, so price the belt in the loadout planner before you commit a life to it.

Vendor price

$400

Chest, unarmored

1 slug

Head, Level 1 helmet

1 slug

Chest, Level 1 or 2 armor

2 slugs

Chest, Level 3 armor

3 slugs

Chest, buckshot, unarmored

1 shell, all eight pellets

MP43 statsRun the MP43 on slugs

SKS, the first real precision rifle

SKS

03

Marksman Rifle · 7.62x39mm · 420 RPM

A headshot machine that unlocks long before you can afford a sniper.

The SKS opens up early and immediately outclasses the rifles around it. A standard 7.62x39 round to an uncovered head is 105 damage, so anybody who skipped a helmet dies to one click, and the damage holds flat all the way to 400 metres.

Load flesh rounds and the whole torso becomes a one-shot on unarmored targets, chest and stomach alike. That is the SKS at its best. Nobody in an early lobby is fully kitted, and you only have to be right once. A Level 1 helmet ends your free headshot, which is when we start looking at the Mosin.

Vendor price

$2,400

Head, no helmet

1 shot, out to 400 m

Chest, unarmored

2 shots · 0.14s

Chest, flesh rounds

1 shot

Stomach, flesh rounds

1 shot

Head, Level 1 helmet

2 shots

SKS statsRun the SKS on flesh rounds

Mosin Nagant, the first real sniper

Mosin Nagant

04

Sniper · 7.62x54mm · 46 RPM

One shot to the upper chest at half a kilometre, and armor piercing beats every helmet in the game.

Standard rounds one-shot a bare upper chest and keep every point of that damage out to 500 metres. Aim high on the torso. Mid chest and below reads under the threshold and costs you a second shot on a rifle that cycles 46 times a minute.

Then your ammunition choice starts doing the work. Flesh rounds push the upper chest one-shot to a full kilometre, and they one-shot the pelvis through every vest up to Level 4. Standard rounds put a single shot through a Level 2 helmet at 500 metres. Once heavier helmets appear, armor piercing takes over and one-shots every helmet tier in the game, Level 4 included, at that same range.

Vendor price

$4,500

Upper chest, unarmored

1 shot, out to 500 m

Mid chest, unarmored

2 shots

Head, Level 2 helmet

1 shot at 500 m

Head, Level 4 helmet, AP

1 shot at 500 m

Upper chest, flesh rounds

1 shot at 1,000 m

Pelvis, flesh rounds

1 shot at 700 m

Mosin Nagant statsRun the Mosin on armor piercing

FAL, the rifle that works

FAL

05

Assault Rifle · .308 Win · 650 RPM

No damage falloff to 800 metres, and armor piercing kills through any vest in three.

The FAL keeps its full damage out to 800 metres, which is further than most fights on a two kilometre map ever get. Every number here is the number at any range you will realistically shoot from.

Where it earns the price is armor. Standard rounds take three hits through a Level 2 vest, and armor piercing takes three through every vest in the game including Level 4, in 0.18 seconds. An M4 needs six through Level 2 and 0.38 seconds to do it. That gap is our whole argument for saving up.

Vendor price

$6,500

Head, unarmored

1 shot, out to 800 m

Chest, Level 2 armor

3 shots · 0.18s

Chest, Level 4 armor, AP

3 shots · 0.18s

Pelvis, flesh rounds

1 shot at 800 m

Legs, Level 4 armor, flesh

2 shots

FAL statsRun the FAL on armor piercing

The one to skip: Scout Rifle TD

The Scout Rifle TD looks like an entry-level sniper at $1,100 and does not kill with a headshot at any range on standard rounds. Nowhere. Not at ten metres.

Flesh rounds are the one thing that fixes it, one-shotting both head and chest on unarmored targets. Run those or run past it, and put your money toward the Mosin.

The pelvis rule

Body armor covers the chest. Only Level 4 reaches the pelvis, which means that on every other player in your lobby the hips are bare skin, and flesh rounds double their damage against bare skin.

• Mosin, flesh rounds. One shot to the pelvis kills anybody wearing Level 3 or below, out to 700 metres. No headshot required.
• FAL, flesh rounds. Same trick at 800 metres, and against a Level 4 vest you can still drop them with two rounds in the legs.

It is a strange way to play a sniper and it works. If you can put rounds on a belt buckle, flesh ammunition turns armor tiers into a rounding error. Check any of it in the damage calculator by dressing the target and clicking through the hit zones.

Which round to load

Early lobbies are mostly unarmored, so flesh rounds are the highest value box on the shelf. As Level 3 plates spread, your answer flips to armor piercing on anything you plan to shoot torsos with, and the rest of the time Standard is the round that never surprises you. Armor, Ammo & Time to Kill in the Field Manual has the full model behind that.

A buy order

• First $900. AMP-9 with flesh rounds. It carries you through the levels where nobody has a vest.
• Cheap alternative. MP43 with slugs at $400 when your wallet is thin and your fights are close.
• When you can. SKS with flesh rounds, for the lobbies where half the players still have bare heads.
• At $4,500. Mosin Nagant. Standard rounds to learn it, armor piercing once helmets get serious.
• At $5,500. FAL with armor piercing, and stop worrying about what anyone is wearing.

Your cash carries between matches, and a match that ends while you are alive and kitted refunds 90% of the loadout, so the expensive gun is cheaper than it looks. Ammunition is the part you never get back, which is worth remembering before you buy a hundred slugs. Cash & The Economy has the rest of it, and the money guide covers how to afford all of this faster. When the closed beta opens, this is the order we will be spending in.