Back 4 Blood

First guide in a while so please be constructive if something requires an edit.

Solo Nightmare Offline is a far more approachable conquest than it once first was. This may change with future updates but as of 25/8/22 - this was incredibly effective for me.

Character: Holly - 1 Health whenever she kills a Ridden, +25 Stamina, +5% Team Damage Resistance.
Weapons: Melee Weapon (Machete became my favourite but RNG is RNG) and Shotgun (rarely used.)

Equipment: Tool Kit - to access the supply rooms (these typically have good amounts of copper, cards to purchase and first aid stations) or skip sections if you want to make them easier (boat speed, crop tractor etc.) Would sometimes toggle for Razor Wire if I needed it for a horde (Bar Room, T-5 etc.) but remember to pick the Tool Kit back up once it is placed.
Pain Pills - this was my default as your health becomes irrelevant and it's all about the overheal/temporary health.
Frag Grenades - preferred these for Ogres or groups of special infected. Pipebombs defeat the purpose of the deck build.

Copper Spending: I always made sure to have a Tool Kit at the start of each level. I'd look at the Team Item Upgrades first (higher level Tool Kits, Pain Pills or Grenades have a chance not to be consumed.)
I always aimed to have about 1k entering any level as cards will appear during the level that may be advantageous. Anything that adds health, assists copper, assists melee is a great idea. If it was an accuracy or weapon card, obviously, I could safely avoid it.

The Deck:
Fit as a Fiddle - +20% Team Bolstered Health, +5 Health
Energy Drink - +15% Stamina, +25% Weapon Swap Speed, +15% Move Speed while firing, +10% Slow Resistance
Slugger - +5 Health, +10% Melee Stamina Efficiency, +20% Attack Speed
Brazen - +15% Melee Stamina Efficiency, +20% Melee Attack Speed
Meth Head - +5% Melee Speed, Melee Stamina Efficient per swing for 6 seconds, stacks to 10 with no sticking in tough enemies. No ADS though.
Vanguard - Melee Kills heal 1 health to you and teammates within 10m.
Battle Lust - Melee Kills heal 1 health and 0.1 trauma.
Spiky Bits - +20% Melee Damage, +20% Damage Resistance while using a Melee Weapon. -15% Ammo Capacity though.
Face Your Fears - Heal 1 Temporary Health for Ridden Kills within 2.5m.
Ignore the Pain - +20% Melee Damage against Mutations, when you deal damage to a Mutation heal 1 Health and recover 3 Stamina.
Sunder - Melee hits cause 3% increased damage to 15% max. Can destroy armor to create Makeshift armor.
Mean Drunk - +40% Melee Damage, attacks cause cleave.
Adrenaline Fueled - When you kill an enemy, gain 5 Stamina and 7 additional Stamina over 7 seconds, stacks to 5.
Cross Trainers - +20% Stamina, +20% Stamina Regen, +3% Move Speed, +5 Health.
Berserker - Melee Kills gran 5% Melee Damage, Melee Speed and Move Speed for 3 seconds.

How to play: You want to swing through every enemy possible (specials included.) The overheal mechanic from Fit as a Fiddle enables you to have a large health pool. With all of the healing provided by Holly and the deck, you are constantly replenishing your base health or creating a larger temporary health pool. The bots are quite durable, have unlimited resources and tag everything for you. You could reroll your playthroughs to get certain teammates for their traits (Karlee's sleeper tagging was VERY helpful.)

I deliberately over explored to maximise my copper and potential items. Create funnel points for hordes (sitting next to a door and swinging away.) Retreat when required.
I can flesh this out further if required.

Level of experience: I completed Recruit and Veteran late last year, before the game was modified to have Full Starting Decks and balancing for specials. Admittedly, since then, I've only played Recruit Quickplay so I wouldn't identify as an expert at the game.

Any trouble along the way? Yep.
2-7 Heralds of the Worm Part 1 - I was stubborn and didn't retreat back to the safe room. This took 4 attempts but fortunately, it's a checkpoint.
Act 3 has more ridden mutations such as toxic pools, fire and popping heads - all contradict aggressive melee play. Quick movement, swiping at legs for the popping heads and melee through walls are effective strategies to combat this. Admittedly, the deck was so strong that the only difference was I was running on lower health than I was accustom to in Act 1 and 2.
3-5 T-5 - quite an infamous level and I had very little razor wire to help me through. Honestly, it's chaos, I got the last box while dodging an Ogre who just finished killing my last bot.
4-1 The Abomination - this build didn't work on this level so I changed decks but still used Holly for the ZWAT outfit.

That deck was:
Knowledge is Power - +10% Weakspot Damage, see enemy health bar and damage.
Quick Kill - +50% Accuracy. No ADS though.
Hunker Down - +10 Damage Resistance and +40% Accuracy while crouching.
Hyper-Focused - +50% Weakspot Damage. -40% Move speed while shooting/melee though.
Reckless Strategy - +30% Weakspot Damage. -5% Damage Resistance though.
Ridden Slayer - +20% Weakspot Damage.
Glass Cannon - +25% Damage. -30% Health though.
Killer's Instinct - +30% Weakspot Damage. No ADS though.
Bomb Squad - 1 Extra Frag Spawn, +25% Team Explosive Damage and Explosive Resistance.
Motorcycle Helmet - +15% Damage Resistance, +10 Health. No ADS though.
Mag Coupler - +50% Reload Speed. No ADS though.
Shredder - Each bullet causes 1% extra damage taken for 3 seconds, stacks to 15.
Ammo Belt - +50% Ammo Capacity, +15% Reload Speed.
Front Sight Focus - +20% Accuracy, +10% Weakspot Damage, +15% Aim Speed.
Silver Bullets - +10% Bullet Damage, +15% Effective Bullet Range.

What to change for the last level? I used an LMG while crouched. The bots were exceptional at clearing hordes along with targeting the weakspots.

Hopefully this helps! Happy to hear any suggestions or edits. The decks were tinkered throughout my playthrough and may still not be optimal. But it was enough for me to get Nightmare done in a short, hassle free time.

P.S. Unsure if I should copy and paste this to other Acts??

Hello all.

Invincible666’s guide is great and I don’t want to take away from the effort he put into writing his guide. My guide will outline my experiences and hopefully help more people who are on the fence about attempting this game/difficulty.

My experience level: I’ve completed all 5 acts on No Hope difficulty – all of which was by myself in offline mode. I’m no expert by any means, so I hope that encourages more of you to try nightmare because nightmare is SO much easier than No Hope.

Important things to note about offline mode:
1. If you go down and your bots are not able to revive you, quit to the dashboard and you’ll save your continue. You’ll have to restart whichever level you’re on, but it’s a lot better than restarting an entire checkpoint. I had to do this a lot on No Hope, but didn’t fail a single level on Nightmare.
2. Bots automatically share all of their copper with you. At the start of each level, whatever copper the bots are holding will automatically be added to your total.
3. Bots have infinite resources. This includes ammo and healing items. Whenever you’re low on ammo the bots will always drop the ammo type you need, effectively giving yourself infinite ammo.
4. Bots can use healing stations infinitely(and it doesn’t cost copper). Whenever you see a healing station be sure to spot it a couple times with the LB button. The bots will use the healing stations once every 2-3 minutes, which means they basically have infinite health/lives.
5. Bots cannot set off hazards to start a horde. They can run through birds, get hit by sleepers, etc. and a horde will never be called for it.
6. Just remember, the Bots are… bots. They have auto aim that will kill just about every ridden very quickly, but sometimes they do bot things that’ll make you scratch your head. They’ll stand right next to a Bruiser and get pummeled, but the most important thing is that’s not you getting pummeled. They have “infinite” health and lives, so it’s perfect if they take a couple of big hits instead of yourself.

Important things to note in general:
1. Try and complete as many optional objectives as possible so you can get your quickslot, healing, and offensive items to purple. A purple toolkit has a 35% chance for reuse, which could come in handy if you need to heal up a couple times as a healing station. I’ve had a single purple toolkit give me 5 free heals at the healing station(unlikely, but still remarkable). Purple pipe bombs beep for like 10 seconds before blowing up, which is a TON of time. Purple items and guns make life a lot easier. With infinite continues, do each act from start to finish so you’re not behind the 8 ball with white guns at the end of each act. At the end of acts, I would have everything purple and still have around 5,000 copper I didn’t need.
2. Map knowledge is key. Your goal is to not set off any hazards throughout a level, but should one be set off you need to know the best locations to run to in order to fight off a horde. If you spot the ground a bunch of times, the bots will come to where you’re holding up. It's also best to know which levels are guaranteed to have bosses so you can plan what items you buy accordingly.

Act 1 Deck:
I changed my deck up slightly for each act, but below is the deck I used for Act 1 with some explanation for my choices. Change it up wherever you see fit. DO NOT TAKE COMBAT KNIFE. Punching is so much more useful. It stuns multiple zombies at once which prevents you from taking any damage.
1. Medical Professional – First Aid Kits(and Defibs) heal 15 trauma and restore an extra life. This card makes your first aid kits pretty much just like a healing station that you can use at any time.
2. Needs of the Many – 1 extra life. I used this on my No Hope run, but feel this could be replaced with something else on Nightmare because nobody was going down often at all.
3. Knowledge is Power – Allows you to see Mutations Health bar and deal +10% weakspot damage. I like seeing how close mutations are to dying.
4. Down in Front – No friendly fire while crouched. Bots love to run in front of you, so making sure you’re crouched while shooting will prevent you from doing any damage to them. This is particularly great for hordes.
5. Amped Up – Whole team gains 20 health at the start of a horde. This is a great way to give everyone free health, especially on levels with timed hordes.
6. Support Scavenger – More Support items spawn. Another No Hope card. On No Hope, nothing spawns on the map unless you have these cards, so for Nightmare you could replace this if you’d like.
7. Cold Brew Coffee – Many effects. Just an overall good card.
8. Mad Dash - +20% sprint speed, -40% sprint stamina efficiency. You won’t be able to run for as long, but believe me the speed makes a huge difference. If you find yourself surrounded by zombies, this can be very useful to getting yourself out of there while the bots clear. If you sprint for half a second and then jump you can cover big distances for a small amount of stamina.
9. Multitool - +75% Use Speed, -5% damage resistance.
10. Screwdriver - +50% Use Speed, +10% Stamina
11. Combat Medic - +50% Use Speed, revives heal for an extra 20 health. Cards 9-11 are useful in all situations. Use speed effects how quickly you use a first aid kit, open boxes, revive bots. But the most important thing it’s for in Act 1 is the last mission where you have to load and unload the gun.
12. Utility Scavenger – More Utility items spawn. See Card #6 above.
13. Double Grenade Pouch - +2 Offensive item slot, -5% move and sprint speed. You could always use the grenade pouch card for +1 slot so you don’t lose the move and sprint speed.
14. Share the Wealth – Each teammate gains 100 copper at the start of the level. Since bots automatically give their copper to you, you get +400 copper at the start of every level.
15. Heavy Hitter – Melee hits stagger enemies the first time they are hit(not bosses). This includes any mutation, so if a scary Bruiser is bee-lining it towards you, you can punch him to give yourself an extra second to kill him
My suggestion would be to replace support and utility scavenger cards for cards that deal extra weakspot damage. I can post my act 2 and act 3 decks if anyone wants me to, but really quickly, for those acts, replace use speed with stamina and move speed cards to allow yourself to move around more freely. If you’re familiar with this game, the “T-5” level may seem daunting to do solo, but with a bunch of stamina and move speed cards, it’s really not that bad at all. There are YouTube videos of people doing T-5 on No Hope solo.

Strategy:
1. TAKE YOUR TIME. I can’t stress this enough. You don’t want to run too far ahead or else you’ll get surrounded by zombies. Keep everything in front of you. If you see a bunch of zombies running towards you, back up a little bit to allow the bots to mow them down.
2. Audio cues are your friend. If you hear a zombie screeching very close to you, look around and start punching. More often than not, you’re about to get hit by something and the punch will stun the zombies before they can touch you. You’ll hear tallboys, stingers, and reekers screeching out in the distance from time to time. This means one has just spawned and is making his way towards you, so just keep an eye out for them and hide behind the bots while killing them.
3. Don’t be scared of small rooms with one entrance. These places aren’t great when playing with real people, but as long as you crouch in the back and shoot anything that moves, the bots will take the damage and you’ll be fine. The one enemy you need to worry about in tight spaces is retches because they can shoot acid into the room which will cause big damage. If that happens just sprint out of the room and keep crouch shooting.
4. The gun I enjoyed using the most was an AA12 shotgun. Those things with “infinite” ammo are really effective at 1 shotting normal ridden and dealing great damage to mutations.

There's probably information I'm missing so if anyone needs more assistance or guidance on particular levels, feel free to comment below or send me a DM. I hope this guide helps people and even encourages some to start this game, because I find it to be a TON of fun.

Cheers.

This guide will be focused on those trying to earn this achievement through 'Quickplay' with random players online. If you're planning on completing this using the 'Solo-Offline' method, then refer to Invincible666 and thepack1221's guide.


OVERVIEW;
This'll probably be the hardest of the 4 Acts to complete on Nightmare and its cause of one simple reason: new players. Cause the way the game is set up, you can't start whichever Act you feel like on whatever difficulty you feel like. Say if you wanted to play Act 3 on Nightmare, you would have to complete Acts 1 & 2 on at least that difficulty in order to be able to have the option to play it. You do have the option to start a match on any difficulty, from the jump, but ONLY for Act 1. Cause of this you will encounter a lot of new players trying (and failing miserably) out this difficulty. They will usually go down in the first 2-3 hordes. If they manage to survive, then their health will be very low and will eat up most of the meds your team either has or comes across. This will frustrate you but eventually you'll find a team with competent enough players to make you feel like you stand a chance. See for Acts 1-3 playing on Nightmare through Quickplay, you're gonna want to pair up with the people who are 'pros' at this game (enabling crossplay will help out a ton with this). They will have hundreds of hours sunken into this game and will know the in's and out's of each level on each act and end up carrying you throughout those levels. This isn't to say you won't hold your own with them (in order to beat this and the other acts, you should be fairly decent at the game) but think of it like this; if the skill gap shows that you're the worst player on your team, even if by a small margin, than your chances of beating this or any act just increased. I completed this act with only 3 players including myself so if your team is that good, you won't even need a fourth player to help out.


DECK BUILD (MELEE FOCUSED);

Down in Front (while crouching, you dont take or deal friendly fire damage, +10 health)

Spiky Bits (+15 melee damage, +20% damage resistance while using a melee weapon, -15% ammo capacity)

Ignore the Pain (+20% melee damage against mutations, heal 2 health and 3 stamina when you deal melee damage on mutations)

Mean Drunk (+40% melee damage)

Face Your Fears (heal 1 temporary health when you kill a ridden withing 2.5 meters)

Berserker (gain 5% melee damage, speed and move speed for 4 seconds on each melee kill)

Battle Lust (melee kills heal 1 health and 0.125 trauma)

Vanguard (melee kills heal 1 health to yourself and teammates within 10 meters)

Adrenaline Fueled (gain 5 stamina instantly and 7 additional stamina over 7 seconds when you kill an enemy, stacks up to 5 times)

Slugger (+5% health, +10% melee and bow stamina efficiency, +20% melee and bow attack speed)

Brazen (+15% melee and bow stamina efficiency, +20% melee and bow attack speed)

Cross Trainers (+20% stamina and stamina regen, +3% move speed and +5 health)

Sunder (melee hits cause target to take 3% increased damage to a max of 15%, melee hits that destroy armor have a chance to create usable makeshift armor)

Reckless Strategy (+30% weakspot damage, -5% damage resistance)

EMT Bag (+50% healing efficiency)


DECK BUILD (COPPER FOCUSED);

Down in Front (while crouching, you dont take or deal friendly fire damage, +10 health)

Hazard Pay (gain 250 bonus copper at the start of each level)

Lucky Pennies (you have a 35% chance to find 100% additional copper when you or team loots copper)

Money Grubbers (each time your team loots copper, you gain 3 additional copper, up to 25 times)

Copper Scavenger (you can sense nearby copper and more copper piles spawn)

Share the Wealth (Each teammate gains 100 bonus copper at the start of each level)

Compound Interest (each cleaner gains 5% of the total copper in each saferoom)

Bounty Hunter (gain 10 copper [up to 300 per level] when you or your team kills a mutation)

Box O' Bags (-10% health, +1 team support inventory)

Surplus Pouches (-5% health, +1 team offensive inventory)

Two is One and One is None (can carry a primary weapon in secondary slot, -25% swap speed)

Reckless Strategy (+30% weakspot damage, -5% damage resistance)

Shooting Gloves (+25% weapons swap speed, +15% recoil control and accuracy)

Ammo Belt (+50% ammo capacity, +15% reload speed)

Front Sight Focus (+20% accuracy, +10% weakspot damage, +15% aim speed and recoil control)


DECK NOTES;
I used a melee build for most of my time playing Nightmare mode with randoms and it's good at keeping me alive but a copper build could be just as good and even more valuable to your team in the long run. I generally used the same build as Invincible666's but with a few tweaks. First off, 'Meth Head' had to go for me. The card disables ADS and this game has way too strong of an aim assist for me to give that up and honestly, with some of the other cards, my stamina only dipped below a single bar once so my melee efficiency/speed was good enough without it. I also swapped out 'Fit as a Fiddle' and 'Energy Drink' for 'EMT Bag' and 'Down in Front'. The latter is obviously needed with real players as teammates and if you have aim like me, you don't notice how unaware you are at just how often you wind up shooting your teammates until you play without this card. And like I said earlier, my stamina was already pretty great so having 'Energy Drink' felt like a waste of a card. I also found 'EMT Bag' to be way more useful than 'Fit as a Fiddle' as the +50% healing efficiency from it was giving me even more health from melee kills.
For my Copper build, I kinda just slapped it together really quick so it's probably not perfect but I can say it hasn't let me down since i've made it so i'd say it's pretty decent. It could probably use some tweaks and if there's anything you feel you want to change to suit your play style better, than go for it.


GENERAL NOTES;
Because this is being done in Quickplay, you have the potential to join mid-game. If this happens to you, you won't have the option of picking your deck nor character until the start of the next level or until your whole team dies. Whenever this happened to me, I usually just let the bot continue playing until the end of the level. I did this for a couple of reasons; bots don't deal friendly fire, have infinite ammo and can teleport to join the rest of the team when straying behind. Doing this also counts towards your progress for completing any given level on an Act so you don't need to worry about that.
Depending on whether or not you, or someone on your team has the dlc, you have the option of completing ridden hives. These are a great way of completing a level early and gaining better loot so I wound up going into hives more often than not with my teams. Going into a ridden hive also counts towards your progress for completing any given level on an Act so again, you don't need to worry about that. Be careful though as in my experience i've found the teams I was with got down easier in hives than playing regularly. Also hive spawns are completely random. Your current run, it might spawn on one level, the next run, it'll spawn on a different one. So if you're stuck on a certain level and hoping a hive bails you out early, there's a chance you might be disappointed.
For my character I chose KARLEE. She's not the best choice but she's helpful enough, her skills make her flexible for whatever build (for this purpose, it'll either be the melee or copper build) you wanna run and no one seems to choose her as a character so more times than not, she'll be available to pick. HOLLY and EVANGELO if you're running a melee build. DOC and MOM if you're a healing build. If you have the dlc, then TALA is a great choice imo. For her quick item slot, she has a whistle that can spawn a friendly tallboy that lasts for 20 or so seconds and really comes in handy if you're feeling overwhelmed with a horde.
For your Burn card, pay attention to what your team chooses. You can check what they chose under the 'Active Cards' section. 'Quick Item Upgrade' is crucial to making this act as much of a breeze as possible so if by level 1.5, no ones chosen it, then pick it up. By levels 1.7 (Bar Room Blitz) and 1.9 ('The Diner'), you'll be thanking me, but i'll get to that later. Other than that, you're free to chose whichever card you feel would be best for your team. I never really felt like I needed to use a burn card with my good teams (the really good players always chose the 'Quick Item Upgrade' card) so if everything's running smooth than you can do what I did and use the card I had the most of. This happened to be a card that gave my team an extra life.
Purchasing at the shop, I never focused on team ammo upgrade or purchasing ammo period. Always go for the first 2 upgrades. They can be a quick, offensive and or support item upgrade and an additional slot. These will run you about 1,500 copper so communicate with your team (you can use the in-game chat by pressing the Start button twice really fast to bring it up) if you need more copper. Team health is nice if you got a little leftover copper. And with the right build, you wont need to purchase team stamina as you'll be crouching the majority of your time playing. Shields are also pretty helpful especially against mutations so I usually went for that.
For items, I went with pipe bombs and pain pills if need be. You should leave your healing up to whoever's playing DOC or even MOM on your team but always having at least one pain pill in your inventory is a smart move.


GAMEPLAY NOTES;
Chapter 1 (1.1-1.4) is pretty simple and shouldn't give you too much trouble. Stick to your team like glue for 1.4 and have pipe bombs ready for when you run down the highway and into the big yacht. This level can spiral your team downwards if you're not together.
Chapter 2 (1.5- 1.7). Like I stated earlier, if your team hasn't chosen the 'Quick Item Upgrade' burn card yet, do it. 1.5 & 1.6 are simple enough but 1.7 (Bar Room Blitz) will have you feeling hopeless if you aren't prepared. This is when upgrading your quick item comes in handy. At this point, your quick item should be at level 3 or 4 (blue and purple respectively). If not then level 2 (green) should still help but you'll need alot of copper to compensate. You're gonna wanna spend most of your copper on razor wire. About 10 bunches should do the trick, 12 if you wanna play it safe. If your quick item is at level 2 then maybe 16-19 bunches of wire should be enough. Now here comes the important part; once you drop down the stairs, you can't come back up so the trick is to hop on the railing of the stairs and position yourself in a way so when you go into your inventory and drop your wire, it should land below you on the second floor. Keep repeating this process until you've dropped all the wire to the second floor. Once done, clear the ridden and mutations between where you're at all the way to the big gate you have to hop over to get to the bar. After you've cleared the area of ridden, go for the razor wire. Go to the gate and hug it as much as you can then drop the razor wire. Keep repeating this process for all the razor wire. Once you're done, have 1 of your teammates climb over the truck to get to the other side of the gate and they should be able to pick up the razor wire through the gate. If they can't, then pick the wire back up and reposition yourself until you can drop the wire again for them. Once all the wires are picked up and are on the side of the gate that the bar is on, you can hop on over. Now that you're in the bar, pick up those razor wires and make sure to cover all entrances first. After that, you should focus on filling up the rest of the inside of the bar. Try and make sure every, and I mean EVERY, area is covered in razor wire. From the back, in the bathrooms, all the way to the front. Now that all the wires are placed, loot up and set yourself up. There's also a health station in the back of the bar on the left hand side. Now that you're finished looting and everyone's ready, start up the jukebox and start killing whatever crosses your path. If everything works out well, you'll leave with your health mostly intact and the jukebox won't get damaged which will net you the 'Jukebox Hero' achievement if you haven't earned it yet.

Chapter 3 (1.8-1.9). 1.8 shouldn't be too bad but 1.9 ('The Diner') is another level that can quickly turn into madness if you're not prepared. You're gonna want to stock up on some more razor wire but be warned that when you trigger the alarm on the big door to lead out of the first area right outside the saferoom, you won't be able to purchase anything from the shop for the remainder of the level. Make your way through the level until you reach the front of the diner, then drop all your razor wire. This'll take multiple trips and is slightly annoying but is absolutely worth it. Important thing to note here is to NOT place the objective containers at their designated spots in front of the diner BEFORE you've moved all your razor wire. The reason for this is because once the objective containers are placed, the door connecting the garage to the beginning area closes and is unable to be opened back up. Looking at the diner from the garage, you're gonna be hunkering down all the way in the back and to the left. Set down the mini gun and a couple of your razor wire in this area and a few more throughout the area where the loot is and wherever else you see fit. Don't forget to loot up and once you and your team are ready, start up the generator. There will be a timer that counts down and during that time horde after horde will come after you. Make sure to take care of the tallboys as soon as you see them as they can be a problem with the whole team in one confined space. Towards the end of the timer, a breaker will appear. This is where the mini gun will come in handy. Cause you haven't touched the mini gun until now, you can spray everything you have into the breaker until it dies. By this point the timer should be near finished and so will your completion of this level.
Chapter 4 (1.10-1.13). The first and last levels of this chapter are the toughest imo. The 2 levels in between, while a little challenging, weren't all too bad as long as you're team is coordinated. Only note I have for either of those 2 is at the end of 1.11 (Hell's Bells) when you're fortifying the 6 church windows, split up and make sure everyone's placing one board on a separate window than their teammates. For some reason the ridden and mutations won't jump over when you have at least one plank of wood boarded up on a given window. After you have at least 1 plank boarded on all 6 windows than finish boarding the windows up until they're all done. In 1.10 (Bad Seeds) you'll need to stock up on pipe bombs. 2 or 3 should do the trick, 4 if you want to be extra careful. In the second part of this level you're gonna destroy 4 orange weakspots attached to various veins (I don't know what else to call them) located throughout the second section of the level. For the first 3 weakspots you're gonna want to destroy them and immediately run back inside the house and find yourselves a corner to crouch in. The spot everyone seems to go towards is near the back, next to, or even inside the room that requires a toolkit to open. If you do open that room up with a tool kit, there's a health station in there to use. Once you've destroyed 3/4 weakspots, the last one should be located at the start of the bridge up and to the left of the barn next to military truck. Only have 1 person there to destroy it and the rest of the team waiting in front of the water on the right side of the barn. There'll be a continuous horde that activates once you destroy the weakspot so after you do destroy it, wait a couple of seconds and throw one of your pipe bombs. With the ridden distracted, you're gonna wanna make your way over the bridge that gets called in and go straight pass the little hut and head towards the saferoom. While heading up towards the saferoom, throw another pipe bomb. It might not seem needed as you're only a few meters away from the saferoom but trust me, with ridden running towards your team from what seems like every direction, that extra pipe bomb will feel like your saving grace. Otherwise, you'll have more runs failed just cause of this one small area than you'll care to count. 1.13 (The Sound of Thunder) is where you'll need a whole lot of everything. But before I get into that, it's important to note that your team makes sure no one opens the door to leave the saferoom unless your team is fully prepared. I remember one time opening the door and after a few minutes passed of me being idle, one of those big orange-jumpsuit cultist guys with the iron claws came out with a couple of ridden, charged through and yanked half my health. Now on to the stuff you'll need? basically everything from all the other levels but a bit more. Razor wire, meds, pipe bombs, you should stock up on all of it. Again, leave the important heals like bandages and medkits for the DOC of the group and just run with pain pills. There's another health station at the saferoom so make sure someone has a toolkit so you can get as many free heals from there as possible. If you still need more heals but your toolkit broke then just buy another, at this point your quick item will be leveled up to a point where the cost difference on buying toolkits far outways having to purchase health for 400 copper each time. According to A 0 A Laurence, you can stay at the top of the slide and shoot out the ridden and mutations to clear this area up before sliding down to the main area where the finale will take place. I never did this so I can't confirm this'll work but I do know that yes the ridden and cultist mutations spawn, one after another, ENDLESSLY (or at least that's what it felt like) as soon as you drop down the slide. Try not to get too bogged down with this though as they can easily screw you and your team over before the "actual" finale even begins. Once down there make your way over to the cannon and begin setting down a couple of razor wires. Set a few more in front of you where the ridden and mutations will spawn. Next gather the missiles needed and place them close enough to the cannon to be in arms reach but not too close to where they're gonna fly a couple of feet away cause of the blast radius from the cannon. Loot up for whatever else you need, place gas canisters/propane tanks in appropriate places if you'd like and once you're team is ready, fire your the cannon. You're gonna need to fire 6 missiles from the cannon and the process goes in 3 steps; 1) load a missile. 2) fire the missile. and 3) clear the missile shell from the cannon. The 3rd step is the one I always seem to forget about and ends up costing me crucial seconds that determine whether or not I wind up completing the level or failing it so whoever has a deck that utilizes fast use speed, should be the one manning the cannon. By the 4th missile, an ogre will appear. If you're fast enough, you can end up killing it with the cannon which will net you the 'Brute Force' achievement if you haven't unlocked it already.

If not, then the situation will start to get a little hectic so you're gonna wanna make use of your pipe bombs and of the mini gun to the right of the cannon, mounted on the Humvee. Keep loading the cannon up and firing twice more and if all goes well, after you fire the 6th missile from the cannon a cutscene should play and this achievement should pop up soon after.