Call of Duty: Vanguard

To get this achievement I would recommend doing this on Recruit difficulty. Reverting to last checkpoint does not void this either. Also you have to eliminate all the enemies with a Takedown. A Takedown is a special melee attack that prompts you to press when near an enemy. Using regular melee attacks will not count. Takedowns are easier to do in stealth as 99% of the time the prompt will appear. When things go loud it's a bit hit or miss if the prompt appears or not. I would also recommend wearing a headset and changing the Audio Mix to Headphones.

This takes place after you emerge from the destroyed rubble. On your left you will see an enemy crouch walk behind to use the takedown. After this move forward and two enemies will wonder into the area in front of you. Wait for the enemies to walk past and use a takedown on both of them. Keep going forward in the small building until you see a Mannequin sat on a small ledge next to a pillar. There will be an enemy walking towards you, hide behind the pillar and wait for him to go past, then use the takedown.

After this I would recommend going prone next to the counter in the middle and try and study the enemy movements as they are sporadic. One thing I noticed though is that if you eliminate an enemy in the open another solider will walk towards their body. I found that this helped a lot in the open snow section.

After climbing up a level you will go through a small crack in the wall. Around here you will get a checkpoint, there will be an enemy directly in front of you, this is a good area to farms kills for the Pop Goes The Nightingale achievement. Then I would recommend sticking to the right side of the room and eliminating the guard who's by the door. Turn left and there will be a guard who's facing away from you. By this point the last guard will be by the bookshelves on the right side.

After going up another level you will be ambushed by an enemy where he'll throw you through the floor. After this you will get a checkpoint, and will need to use a takedown on the sniper. You will need to do 2 takedowns on the sniper. After this you will go up against groups of 3-4 enemies at a time. Best advice for this section is that if they spot you, just restart checkpoint as the enemy movement is sporadic.

A little while later you will encounter some machinegun enemies, I think by this point they will automatically detect you, just keep running towards them and looking for the to do a takedown.

I tried looking for a weapon with a bayonet to see if that made takedowns easier, I couldn't find one though. Also I didn't really find any use for the distraction ability in this section.

To get this achievement I would recommend doing this on Recruit difficulty. Reverting to last checkpoint does not void this either. Also you have to eliminate all the enemies with a Takedown. A Takedown is a special melee attack that prompts you to press when near an enemy. Using regular melee attacks will not count. Takedowns are easier to do in stealth as 99% of the time the prompt will appear. When things go loud it's a bit hit or miss if the prompt appears or not. I would also recommend wearing a headset and changing the Audio Mix to Headphones.

This takes place after you emerge from the destroyed rubble. On your left you will see an enemy crouch walk behind to use the takedown. After this move forward and two enemies will wonder into the area in front of you. Wait for the enemies to walk past and use a takedown on both of them. Keep going forward in the small building until you see a Mannequin sat on a small ledge next to a pillar. There will be an enemy walking towards you, hide behind the pillar and wait for him to go past, then use the takedown.

After this I would recommend going prone next to the counter in the middle and try and study the enemy movements as they are sporadic. One thing I noticed though is that if you eliminate an enemy in the open another solider will walk towards their body. I found that this helped a lot in the open snow section.

After climbing up a level you will go through a small crack in the wall. Around here you will get a checkpoint, there will be an enemy directly in front of you, this is a good area to farms kills for the Pop Goes The Nightingale achievement. Then I would recommend sticking to the right side of the room and eliminating the guard who's by the door. Turn left and there will be a guard who's facing away from you. By this point the last guard will be by the bookshelves on the right side.

After going up another level you will be ambushed by an enemy where he'll throw you through the floor. After this you will get a checkpoint, and will need to use a takedown on the sniper. You will need to do 2 takedowns on the sniper. After this you will go up against groups of 3-4 enemies at a time. Best advice for this section is that if they spot you, just restart checkpoint as the enemy movement is sporadic.

A little while later you will encounter some machinegun enemies, I think by this point they will automatically detect you, just keep running towards them and looking for the to do a takedown.

I tried looking for a weapon with a bayonet to see if that made takedowns easier, I couldn't find one though. Also I didn't really find any use for the distraction ability in this section.

I found the best way to cheese this achievement by basically goading the enemies into letting me Takedown them.

I "unlocked" this achievement twice and did not get credit. The trick that got it to work the third time around was to not damage the enemies in any way - if you get any hitmarkers, revert to last checkpoint. No smoke hitmarkers, no melee hitmarkers. If an enemy throws a grenade, there is the potential for another enemy to die by that grenade. Even if you can monitor the situation to make sure nobody dies, you should just immediately revert since you really don't want to risk the possibility that someone you never saw, dies.

The way to goad your enemies into letting you take them down is simple, and works like a charm for the final wave of enemies, including the LMG idiot who supernaturally knows your position. To minimize the risk of not damaging enemies, I would only smoke when I was stunned by a melee. You actually want as many enemies as possible fighting you. I know that sounds funny, but basically: you want them running at you.

Enabling a takedown in-combat basically requires you to goad an enemy into chasing you. It requires an enemy who is not "actively fighting" per se, rather someone who is "in transition". If this were CoD Competitive, this would be known as "finessing" the enemies - dipping, ducking, dodging, and diving to get your enemies to pursue you. As long as you catch your enemy chasing you (i.e. closing in on your position), if you pop out from around the corner sprinting at them, they can usually be taken down very reliably .

This can be done by abusing something as simple as a pillar, where the enemy is within arm's length on the other side of it, or a counter, where the enemy is on the other side (where you can reach out and tap them), and any Line of Sight (LoS) break. Any simple movement that requires the enemy to move to get to you appears to work, and I tested this many times. It's simple: Take down as many in stealth as you can, then when you inevitably are found, don't panic. Run at the enemy, get close, let them know you're there, and let them chase you somewhere. Run around the corner, then turn around and run back out to catch them chasing you (right before they're about to round the corner). If they're on the other side of the counter, mantle it, then mantle back, then mantle again. Keep mantling things, those are great for forcing the enemy to stance-change and make themselves vulnerable. Just toy with them and make them run around.

Now the tricky part is making sure you're actually going to take them down rather than melee them. What I did was I got close enough for the takedown prompt to appear, then backed up a tiny bit so I was out of melee range , then I initiated the Takedown so it would lunge. You basically want to get out of that arm's length where you can gun-butt them, but remain within the Takedown distance to lunge at them, eliminating the risk of an accidental gun-butt, which would force you to restart. The funny thing about taking down on enemy is that it puts other nearby enemies into a takedown-able state, since you become invincible while taking down an enemy. This seems to somehow "reset" the eligibility of the takedown and let everyone nearby be taken down, so you can just chain a bunch of takedowns and run through your enemies.

This does NOT work on the super-armor sniper guys . I wouldn't recommend following the trick where the other poster said to damage them with your gun to knock their helmet off, just follow the standard double-takedown on them. Remember: No damage, no hitmarkers, takedown only.

I found the best way to cheese this achievement by basically goading the enemies into letting me Takedown them.

I "unlocked" this achievement twice and did not get credit. The trick that got it to work the third time around was to not damage the enemies in any way - if you get any hitmarkers, revert to last checkpoint. No smoke hitmarkers, no melee hitmarkers. If an enemy throws a grenade, there is the potential for another enemy to die by that grenade. Even if you can monitor the situation to make sure nobody dies, you should just immediately revert since you really don't want to risk the possibility that someone you never saw, dies.

The way to goad your enemies into letting you take them down is simple, and works like a charm for the final wave of enemies, including the LMG idiot who supernaturally knows your position. To minimize the risk of not damaging enemies, I would only smoke when I was stunned by a melee. You actually want as many enemies as possible fighting you. I know that sounds funny, but basically: you want them running at you.

Enabling a takedown in-combat basically requires you to goad an enemy into chasing you. It requires an enemy who is not "actively fighting" per se, rather someone who is "in transition". If this were CoD Competitive, this would be known as "finessing" the enemies - dipping, ducking, dodging, and diving to get your enemies to pursue you. As long as you catch your enemy chasing you (i.e. closing in on your position), if you pop out from around the corner sprinting at them, they can usually be taken down very reliably .

This can be done by abusing something as simple as a pillar, where the enemy is within arm's length on the other side of it, or a counter, where the enemy is on the other side (where you can reach out and tap them), and any Line of Sight (LoS) break. Any simple movement that requires the enemy to move to get to you appears to work, and I tested this many times. It's simple: Take down as many in stealth as you can, then when you inevitably are found, don't panic. Run at the enemy, get close, let them know you're there, and let them chase you somewhere. Run around the corner, then turn around and run back out to catch them chasing you (right before they're about to round the corner). If they're on the other side of the counter, mantle it, then mantle back, then mantle again. Keep mantling things, those are great for forcing the enemy to stance-change and make themselves vulnerable. Just toy with them and make them run around.

Now the tricky part is making sure you're actually going to take them down rather than melee them. What I did was I got close enough for the takedown prompt to appear, then backed up a tiny bit so I was out of melee range , then I initiated the Takedown so it would lunge. You basically want to get out of that arm's length where you can gun-butt them, but remain within the Takedown distance to lunge at them, eliminating the risk of an accidental gun-butt, which would force you to restart. The funny thing about taking down on enemy is that it puts other nearby enemies into a takedown-able state, since you become invincible while taking down an enemy. This seems to somehow "reset" the eligibility of the takedown and let everyone nearby be taken down, so you can just chain a bunch of takedowns and run through your enemies.

This does NOT work on the super-armor sniper guys . I wouldn't recommend following the trick where the other poster said to damage them with your gun to knock their helmet off, just follow the standard double-takedown on them. Remember: No damage, no hitmarkers, takedown only.

Mentioning additionally to the guides here:

You have to clear the ground floor (the one you emerge from the underground) before going up to the next level of the department store. I missed to take down all of them in my first two runs for this achievement n failed to get it.
I can confirm that you have to take out EVERYONE by takedown to get this pain in the xxx achievement.

This just popped for me on veteran so I'd like to dispell a few myths that are floating around in the guides/comments.

Things I did during the unlock:
- melee'd guards then came back and used takedowns
- threw smoke
- hit a guard in the face with a smoke grenade

Given the difficulty a lot of people are having it's quite possible this achievement is glitchy, so I want to reassure you if it's not unlocking, it's probably not something you're doing wrong. No need to make it harder on yourself by not meleeing or using smoke.

Definitely take out the people on the ground floor first before moving onwards. Once on the higher levels you will probably be spotted. There are numerous vents around the edges that are great to hide/heal in.

If you manage to pull off something tricky (like taking down the lmg guards for example) go for a run around the level (use the vents or change floors) to try and trigger a checkpoint and lock in your progress.

Definitely a frustrating achievement but totally doable. Don't overthink it, and if you're having trouble, come back later on recruit difficulty and try again.

I had problems with takedowns because it's rng between takedown and melee when enemies have found you. If you have takedown indicator on your screen it still might do normal melee. After few tries i found this video:


Running front of enemy and using on d-pad (whistle to get snipers attention) distracts enemy and gives you option to takedown. This doesn't work on Jägermörder or general with pistol, but i noticed that if you come out from crawling space or behind corner it gives you most of the time option to takedown so use that on them. Also enemy with shotgun is the sniper so don't try to take him down because you can't kill him. Just run away until he goes back to his sniping position.

First floor you don't have this ability. Left side enemies are easy to takedown, but to kill mid and rightside enemies you need to push them, because they don't come to left side. After they spot you, you can try to hide and get them back to seek mode. After you manage to do this enemies will come to left side.

If you can't get them to seek mode you can use this method which i mentioned earlier
Hope this helps and sorry for bad english.