Iron Brigade

---How to get all Gold Medals in Single Player---

EUROPE: The Enemies are pretty weak in these first set of missions so any combination of weapons will do the job here. Getting Gold on these should be easy.

1-1 Beach - Set up Shotgun Turrets at the ends of the L shaped wall and one near the ship just in case. Shoot anything that moves.

1-2 Airfield – Set up Flak Cannons to kill Aerial Tubes and kill anything else that gets close.

1-3 Trainyard – Set up Flak Cannons to kill Aerial Tubes and kill anything else that gets close. Also have at least one explosive weapon for the Breaker Tubes.

1-4 Refinery – Set up Turrets at the ends of the paths and at the tops of the ramps. Tommys can make short work of your buildings from the tops of the ramps. Try to stay in the middle area to react to attacks on either flank.

1-5 Pylon – Northern Pylon - Don't use artillery! It is slow to reload and has a limited area of effect. Any combination of Machine Guns, Shotguns, or Grenade Launchers works great. Do NOT put down turrets. Do NOT attack any tubes attacking you. Shoot the main body first, then the legs on the left and right when the shield goes up, then the main body again when the shield goes down. (BEST TIME: 22s with MA-N7Y “The Scythe” Machine Guns on the Karlsson Mk IV Chassis)


AFRICA: Having at least one sniper rifle equipped will help you out greatly here. You are going to find yourself too far away at times to do much damage without one.

2-1 Oasis – Machine Guns, Machine Guns, Machine Guns. Did I mention you will need Machine Guns? This is your first map with the Knobs and Machine Guns will make short work of them. Put Machine Gun Turrets on top off all of the pedestals and in front of the pond. Having six Machine Guns on a Karlson Chassis wouldn’t hurt either. Stay around the building you are protecting and don’t wander further than the ends of the paths from it and this one should be cake.

2-2 Hospital – Have at least one Sniper Rifle for this one and one explosive weapon. Cover up the paths around the hospital with Machine Gun Turrets and kill anything else that gets close.

2-3 Port – Grenade Launchers will carry the day on this one. Enemies run up narrow paths making mass kills easy. You will get your 5 Kill achievement on this one if you haven’t got it already. Put turrets in a triangle formation in front of your base and be ready to sprint to the other side when the artillery gun drops. DO NOT wander far from your base area or the artillery gun. You will be getting attacked from all sides. Use your grenades wisely and don’t fire them all off at once like a machine gun.

2-4 Sinkhole – Place turrets high up on the sides close to the rock walls. This allows your guns to get in range of tubes before they can fire. I managed this one with just Machine Guns but whatever weapon load out works for you is fine. Shotgun Turrets are particularly effective on this one. Tommys are your biggest threat to the bomb so kill them before they start mass firing. Stay close to the bomb and only run for scrap when you have a timer before the next wave.

2-5 Sphinx – Guardian of the Southern Terminal – Don’t use artillery! Same reason as above. Use any combination of Machine Guns, Shotguns, or Grenade Launchers. Attack the Guardian as soon as it pops up out of the ground. When it disappears be ready for low visibility and a group of the smaller worms to surround you. Kill each worm one at a time in a circle with short bursts till they are all dead. This will happen 3 times and the faster you do it the faster the boss will reappear. When the Guardian pops back up unload into him once again. He will repeat the previous process of disappearing and reappearing with the smaller worms one more time. Drop Machine Gun Turrets anywhere you can when you have time. (BEST TIME: 117s 6 MA-N7Y “The Scythe” Machine Guns, the Karlsson Mk IV Chassis, Massive Machine Gun Turret)


PACIFIC: Enemies are tougher here so you will want at least one explosive weapon. I recommend a 2 Grenade Launcher/2 Machine Gun combo. By this time you should be able to take out groups of enemies quickly. If you haven’t gone exclusively to the Sprint+ Legs now would be the time.

3-1 Village – Drop Machine Gun Turrets right in front each hut as soon as you can. Put additional Machine Gun Turrets on top of each of the rocks sticking out of the ground. Put any other turrets wherever there is room. Bury the map in them if you can. Try to stay somewhere in front of the middle hut so you can react to waves from either side.

3-2 Power Plant – This will be your first introduction to Jacobs. Always kill Jacobs first. Having a Sniper Rifle to take them out at a distance so you and your turrets can finish off their friends is a good tactic here. Also have a Grenade Launcher because enemies bunch up on this mission. Stick close to the Power Plant and watch out for tubes attacking you from behind. You can quickly find yourself below 80% with these surprise attacks from the rear. Placing an upgraded Dampener here can slow down these attacks long enough for you to react to them. Otherwise lots of Machine Gun Turrets will help you out greatly.

3-3 Drydock – Massive Shotgun Turrets and Dampener Generator Mark III Turrets working in tandem make this mission very easy to gold medal. Place a Massive Shotgun Turret in front of each of the sections of the ship you are protecting with a Dampener Generator Mark III right in front of the Shotgun. This will slow down the tubes long enough for the shotgun to kill almost all of them. When I had enough scrap I added a second Shotgun to the front and one more each to the tops of the ramps. Having a load out with Grenade Launchers and Machine Guns should handle anything else.

3-4 Volcano - Advanced Flak Cannons and Dampener Generator Mark III Turrets will be your friends on this one. Grenade Launchers with magnetic properties (Magnetic Grenades do big damage to the Volt Droppers) and Machine Guns will be your best bet but any combination of Grenade Launchers with Machine Guns or Shotguns Works. As soon as you start drop a Dampener at the end of the rocks on the left hand side. This Dampener should be out of view of any tubes coming up the left most path. Upgrade it all the way as soon as you can. You will put two more fully upgrade Dampeners behind the low walls in front of the Array. Never move farther than 6 trench paces from these walls. Once you have your Dampeners set up start dropping Flak Cannons on the left and right flanks of the Array. 3 on each side should be enough as long as one on each side is upgraded at least once. Always engage Aerials first and all other range attack tubes (except Snipers). Kill Jacobs as soon as you see them. If you have enough scrap place one more Dampener at the end of the middle path to slow down any Blitzers and Tommys. Being able to take out groups of tubes quickly with the Grenade Launchers is what will make you or break you on this one. The Dampeners should slow down enemy rushes enough for you to take them out. Using Dampeners to slow down enemy attacks is the key to Gold on Volcano.

3-5 Farnsworth - Vlad - You are going to want to have two UO-FM “Fighting Wolverine” Sniper Rifles and two DI-574 “Harry” Shotguns for this one. You will all so want Tripod Legs with Fortify/Quickload. Like the first Boss you will not use any turrets. As soon as the mission starts run straight ahead toward the water. Once the cutscene stops hit A to set your Quickload legs and aim your crosshairs at the force field bubble on top of Vlad's Creature. When it glows red unload into it until it explodes. Hit A again to dodge any incoming lightning strikes. When Vlad reappears go back to your original position, hit A, and do the same as you did before for the other three glowing red weapon ports. Do NOT miss once! Battle action sequences between weapon port activations are long and take up time. Once you take out all three hit A again and dodge lightning strikes and shoot the Knobs trying to weaken you. When Vlad reappears again go back to your original position and hit A again. Aim between his legs and shoot the glowing red sacks when they drop (I know, funny). You should have enough fire power to take them out in one go. Don’t worry about enemies attacking you. You will kill Vlad before they do enough damage to be worrisome. (BEST TIME: 167s 2 UO-FM “Fighting Wolverine” Sniper Rifles , 2 DI-574 “Harry” Shotguns, the Karlsson Mk IV Chassis)

Having the best weapons, best emplacements, on the best chassis will help you greatly going for gold. Don’t underrate the Dampener just because it doesn’t shoot anything. Being able to slow your enemies down will help you get gold more often than bullets will.

***ADDITIONAL***
Since I first wrote this the name of the game has been changed to "Iron Brigade." With this also came a new survival mode that you can get new weapons in. One of these weapons is the L4-2Y "Hyper" Sniper (Special award once you get past Wave 20 on Survival Hospital.) This is a great gun for boss fights, especially the battle with Vlad. Realistically most of the weapons you get in the new Survival modes will make the original campaign seem like a cake-walk. Many of these new weapons are almost double in power compared to the best weapons in the original.

I suppose the other solution is good. I tried to use it a bit and found the setup to be more trouble than it was worth. I started getting golds as soon as I got my first sniper turret.

Use a chassis that allows you to carry a heavy turret and 3 weapon slots. Fill the weapon slots up with machine guns and use the sniper turret. This is all I ever used and I got gold my first try on every single map (many of which I hadn't played before, including all of The Pacific).

For bosses I switched to the one that allows you to carry 6 weapon slots. I just filled it up with machine guns and snipers (whatever looked best) and went to town on the bosses. Always ignore everything else for them.

If you guys are planning to 100% the DLC as well as the main game then you can make this achievement a lot easier. I recommend doing a trial run of the campaign just so you can unlock the karlson mark III chassis and level up a bit. Once you finish the campaign then do a run through of the DLC. Using the weapons from the DLC getting gold in the main game should be a cakewalk. If you really want to make it easy then get one or two L4-2Y hyper snipers from survival on hospital as well. It's essentially a sniper rifle machine gun. Also go with the quick reload legs. Some levels want you to sprint back and forth but with a sniper rifle machine gun and almost no recoil or reload time you can just kind of sit in the middle. In the third slot you'll want MGs. For some levels you may need grenade launchers (use the one from the DLC!). As weapons use the dampening generator and the ironclad MG. For levels where nonfaith says to use flak you can probably just use these. I still recommend looking at his guide for placement and when to use grenade launchers but realisticially you should be fine just using the DLC's weapons. If you don't buy the DLC then play the hospital survival over and over to get good weapons. Thanks and leave comments or thumbs ups!