Vehicles in WARDOGS: How to Unlock Them and What Each One Does

You do not buy a vehicle in WARDOGS once and for all. First you have to unlock it, which means reaching the required level in the Driver tree (ground vehicles) or Pilot tree (helicopters) and paying a one-off fee. After that you still pay the price for every single unit you buy. In this article you will find an overview of ground vehicles and helicopters with their unlock levels and prices, how to lock a vehicle for your squad, how to refuel and repair it and what the M113 armored transport is for.

Two prices: the unlock and the unit purchase

Vehicles are bought with money from your account, just like weapons and gear. With vehicles that have to be unlocked, though, you run into two different amounts:

• The unlock is a one-off fee. You can only pay it once you have the required level in the relevant tree. The Dune Buggy, for example, unlocks at Driver 8 for $25,000.
• The price per unit is paid with every purchase. Unlocking only earns you the right to buy the vehicle, you have to pay for the machine itself every time.

The per-unit prices have not been reliably verified since Season 1, so the tables below list only the unlock prices that the developers at BULKHEAD published in the Season 1 changelog. Keep in mind that XP from the Driver tree does not count toward helicopters and vice versa. Driving a car will not unlock a helicopter for you.

Season 1 from 10 September 2026 reshuffled vehicle unlocks. The heavy tank moved from Career level 35 into the Driver tree at level 35 and the artillery tank jumped in Career from level 55 to 90, with its unlock going up from $400,000 to $500,000. Older guides from the beta may therefore list numbers that no longer apply. At the same time the developers announced that every season will have a different XP curve and a different item order. In their view a typical player should reach roughly level 20 after 20 to 25 hours of play, while the most expensive things are deliberately a grind for the most persistent 5% of players.

Where to buy a vehicle and where to try it out

Vehicles are bought at the team’s headquarters (HQ) with money from your account, just like weapons and gear. Once you sit in a vehicle, the B key opens the purchase of ammo and supplies.

Before you spend tens of thousands on an unlock, go to the firing range. You can try the vehicles there for free and out of combat, which is especially handy before your first helicopter flight.

Ground vehicles

Ground vehicles unlock in the Driver tree. The exception is the artillery tank, which belongs to the Career tree. Status as of 15 September 2026, Season 1.

Vehicle	Type	Seats	Unlock	Unlock price
Bobcat	quad bike	2	–	–
Kodiak	SUV	4	–	–
Ural	truck	–	Driver 3	$35,000
Kodiak [M249] (Kodiak Assault in the changelog)	SUV with a machine gun	–	Driver 6	–
Dune Buggy	buggy	3	Driver 8	$25,000
Kodiak [Pickup] (Kodiak Flatbed in the changelog)	pickup	6	Driver 10	$35,000
Humvee	lightly armored SUV	4	Driver	–
Ural Defender (URAL Covered in the changelog)	truck with a covered bed	–	Driver 18	–
Ural Defender [M249] (URAL Attack in the changelog)	armed truck	–	Driver 25	–
Humvee [Minigun]	armored SUV with a minigun	–	Driver 30	–
L2A6	heavy tank	3	Driver 35	–
SPH-2	artillery tank	3	Career 90	$500,000
M113 APC SV	armored transport, mobile spawn	–	not for sale	–

A dash means the figure has not been reliably verified yet. For some vehicles the changelog uses a different name than the in-game card, which is why we list it in brackets.

Both the L2A6 tank and the SPH-2 artillery tank have seats for a three-man crew. On top of that, the developers introduced a maximum turret rotation speed for vehicles in the changelog, so a gunner cannot turn the turret arbitrarily fast. The artillery tank has its own guide: aiming across the map, ammo and the mortar.

Helicopters

Helicopters unlock in the Pilot tree. Status as of 15 September 2026, Season 1.

Helicopter	Type	Seats	Unlock	Unlock price
MH-6	small transport	6	–	–
AH-6M [Miniguns] (Little Bird with miniguns in the changelog)	small gunship with miniguns	–	Pilot	$50,000
Z20 Lakota	large transport	13 (2 crew + 11 passengers)	Pilot	$35,000
AH-6R [Rockets]	small gunship with a rocket pod	–	Pilot 20	–
Z20 Lakota [Miniguns]	large helicopter with miniguns	–	Pilot 25	–
Havoc	heavy gunship (2A42 cannon and B-13 rockets)	2	Pilot 35	–

The Z20 Lakota got a balance adjustment in Season 1 and a fix for its sluggish pitch response. The Pilot tree also unlocks a small armored supply crate, whose unlock Season 1 made more expensive at $10,000.

There are no jets in the game yet. The developers have them planned among the new vehicle types due to arrive during early access. Controls, landing and a pilot’s earnings are in the guide Helicopters in WARDOGS.

Locking a vehicle for your squad

You lock and unlock a vehicle with the L key. When you play in a squad (a group of players within a team), you can lock the vehicle for its members only. That comes in handy when you want to be sure that your people take the tank or the helicopter. How to set up a squad and link up with friends is described in the article Playing with friends and squads.

Fuel and repairs

Vehicles have a fuel tank and burn fuel. When you stop and wait, switch the engine off, you will save fuel for the trip back. You can refuel from Fuel Supplies within the radius of a FOB, the forward operating base that players build on the map. A Refuel Station can be built at a FOB as well.

There are three tools for repairs:

• the Wrench,
• the Light Drill, which repairs faster and needs batteries,
• the Heavy Drill, which repairs fastest and needs batteries too.

At a FOB, vehicles are repaired from Mechanical Supplies. Repairing your teammates’ vehicles earns you XP toward the Support tree. How to build and supply a FOB is in the guide Building and the FOB.

Earnings from transport and resupply

A driver or a pilot does not have to shoot to earn. The game pays for delivering teammates into the Control Zone, the 2 × 2 km combat zone that all three teams fight over. When your passengers survive after you drop them off, you get a bonus on top. Passengers can also send you a tip for a good ride.

The second source of income are supply crates. You buy a crate, fill it with supplies and set the prices. Whenever a teammate buys something from it, the money goes to you. Season 1 did, however, reduce the XP for selling an item cheaper than $75 from 25 to 1 and recalculated crate prices so that cheap items cannot be abused. The Driver tree unlocks bigger crates, the Large Supply Crate sits at Driver 16 since Season 1. In Patch 0.11 the developers also threatened money resets and bans for abusing the economy, so treat transport and resupply as a service to your team, not as a trick for quick money.

The Driver tree also unlocks music tapes for vehicles. In Season 1 the Music Tape H moved from the Pilot tree to Driver 23 and its unlock became cheaper at $2,500.

M113 APC: the mobile spawn

The M113 APC SV armored transport is not for sale. It appears at the bases as soon as one of the teams reaches 20 points. Whoever drives it to the zone and parks it gives the team a place to spawn:

• you cannot spawn on a moving APC, it has to be standing,
• the driver gets XP and money for every teammate who spawns on the APC.

Where to park the APC and how it relates to scoring is explained in the guide Control Zone and Hot Zone.

When you lose a vehicle

The developers point out that spending on expensive gear is always a risk. A vehicle is also a magnet for your opponents: destroying enemy vehicles earns them XP toward the Support tree and money, the most in the Control Zone and in the Hot Zone (the smaller moving subzone that pays double money). A car or a helicopter full of players is a very lucrative target in the zone. Against armor your opponents have the RPG-7 and MAAWS launchers, C4 charges, anti-tank mines and drones from the Stingray structure, against helicopters the guided Verba and anti-air structures. How to defend against them and how to use them is in the guide How to destroy a tank, a helicopter and a FOB.

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