Beating Bloodmounts without Shields

Lately I have played in a few games where we forgot to replant key shields or they get knocked down and the bloodmounts are able to come at us without anything to stop them – and we make it through the wave.  I think this is due to a new strategy we have started using.   I like to call it – “Let the newb die”. 

I must admit not everyone I was playing with knew about this strategy, but it has been working.  When a bloodmount attacks the newbs try to go toe-to-toe with the bloodmount.  This is bad for them, but good for you.  This allows the rest of the team to fall back.  Everyone needs to shoot at the bloodmount (in the head!  always in the head!) and ignore the rider until the bloodmount is dead.  The newb might get knocked down before you kill the bloodmount, but the bloodmount will usually leave that player and come after the rest of the team (at least in the earlier waves 10, 20, 30).  By that time the bloodmount is pretty much ready to die and only makes it a few steps before it is downed.  Right when the bloodmount is ready to die, or when it dies, the rider falls off and it stunned for a little bit.  Use this time to run up on the rider and saw him down.  This saves your ammo to use on the next bloodmount.  One person can be sawing down the rider while the others revive the downed teammate.  Since you can only go down three times before you die, you might have to take turns going toe-to-toe with the bloodmounts.

I only recommend this strategy if you don’t have shields.  Also make sure you have plenty of room to back away from the bloodmount.  This strategy doesn’t work well if you can only back up a couple steps.  You need to have plenty of distance between you, the newb and the bloodmount.  You also need a team that works together to bring down the bloodmount by shooting it in the head.  If the newb can stand in a doorway while fighting the bloodmount toe-to-toe it also prevents other enemies from making it past them so you only have to fight one at a time.

How to Plant a Boomshield

Boomshields are not doubt the most important part of any strategy to beat the horde.  By now you should know how to plant a boomshield, but if you don’t know how thats ok cause N3RDI3 has your back.

And now, for the magic AND mystery of planting a boomshield…

While holding the left trigger button, press the “X” button.  This will make your character plant a shield.

Then you say, “BUT N3RDI3, SOMETIMES I JUST CAN’T PLANT IT!!!”

And then I say, thats because you are standing too close to an obstacle.  Your character takes a step before planting a shield so you need to make sure you are back far enough from an obstacle to give your character room to take a lunge while planting the shield.

Then you say, “BUT N3RDI3, I’M NOT EVEN AROUND AN OBSTACLE AND I STILL CAN’T PLANT IT!!!”

And then I’m all… You are probably trying to plant it where an enemy/teammate was just killed.  Sometimes walking back and forth will allow you to push a downed enemy out of the way so you can plant a shield.  Sometimes there is just “gore” on the ground and you still can’t plant it.  You can just hold it for a while until the gore goes away and you can try to plant it again, or you can find a clean patch of ground to put your boomshield in its home. 

And then you’re like…  “BUT N3RDI3, I JUST WANT TO DROP THE SHIELD.  I STILL CAN’T PLANT IT AND I DON’T EVEN CARE AT THIS POINT.  I JUST WANT TO THROW IT AWAY!!!”

And then I’m all like… If you can’t plant a boomshield and you don’t want to hold it anymore, switch to one of your other weapons.  You will drop the boomshield.

Remember!  Left Trigger + X

Double Experience – Labor Day Weekend

I made it to wave 48 on Day One last night playing horde. It is a double experience event and every 10th wave is only Sires. It was pretty awesome. Too bad we couldn’t beat it all the way to wave 50 in one shot. We started over on wave 48 and made it to wave 50 without any trouble.

Our strategy was to have 4 guys below the regency stairs. They protected the stairway and had plenty of boomshields. I was above the regency balcony running the heavy weapons. I didn’t have to get ammo once during all 50 waves because I used the Hammer of Dawn and the mortar. I also used the Magnum and the Lancer which regenerate ammo every wave.

Every 10th wave was strictly sires. It was pretty easy to chainsaw them all down even on wave 50. I think those waves were the easiest waves. It was definitely fun.

More info on the Horde Labor Day Event.

Boomshields and You!

In earlier versions of GOW2, the locust horde could not kick down boomshields. This was a bug that was exploited by gamers since you could plant a shield backwards in a doorway and it would never get kicked down. A patch to GOW2 fixed that bug, but many people still think planting them the opposite way will protect them.

Planting shields backwards will NOT prevent them from getting kicked down. Always assume they will get kicked down sooner or later.

I ran across a cool yet not so cool glitch a few weeks ago on Day One. You can plant a shield on the balcony above the arcade so that it faces the street in a space that does not have a short wall for protection. You can actually climb over the shield and jump to the street below from the balcony. This is cool if you are getting rushed by the horde and need to escape. Unfortunately for me, I landed on top of a truck below and was stuck on the truck for a few rounds until I died. Morale to the story, don’t jump off a balcony onto a truck when a escaping the horde.

It’s all about the shields, baby

We just got done playing Avalanche. We made it to wave 30 with four people, which isn’t bad. However, the only reason we didn’t make it to wave 31 was because of poor shield management. We had only one shield at each stairway, our first mistake. We should have grabbed at least one more shield for each side. Plant one shield at the bottom of the steps and another about 3/4 the way up. This should have been easy for us to manage, since it would have only been one shield per person. However, we didn’t make it a point to grab more shields in rounds 27, 28 or 29.

So, when a Sire came and knocked down our one shield at the bottom of the stairs, I decided to go after it, my second mistake. I got the shield, but there were so many carcasses lying around the base of the stairs, I was unable to place it. That was when I saw the Mauler coming my way. I quickly backed my way up the steps, while trying to plant the shield every once and a while. Obviously this didn’t work, the Mauler got me over my shield and as my teammates came to save me, the Mauler knocked them down too.

Moral of the story: You can never have too many shields. By the time you are done with wave nine, everyone on your team should have a shield and they should be in charge of it after every wave.