Wardogs FOB Guide: What It Costs and How to Build One

A FOB is a module your squad buys, hauls into the field and hammers up, putting a built position where you want one instead of the tower the map hands you. It costs $7,500 at the Equipment vendor after Bulkhead’s Season 1 price rise, plus a hammer and a truckload of build supplies on site. PC Gamer measured hammer swings paying cash in the closed beta.

What a FOB actually does in Wardogs

Wardogs is a three-team fight over a control zone. Bulkhead’s own Steam description sets the shape of it: up to 100 players, randomised 2x2km areas, points earned by keeping bodies in the zone, first to 100 points wins. One of the listed ways to play is to “fortify a strategic chokepoint by building your own forward operating base.”

That is what the module buys you: not a fort, but the right to put one where you want it. PC Gamer’s money guide, written from the closed beta and published the day before launch, notes that a default FOB spot already exists at the start of a match — the tower nearest your spawn. Your own module is for putting one somewhere better, and everything that makes it a chokepoint — walls, gates, a mortar — you build afterwards, out of supplies you hauled there yourself.

What a FOB costs in Wardogs

Prices moved at launch, so older beta guides are out of date. Bulkhead’s Season 1 changelog, published September 9, 2026, lists the change and the reason in one line: Forward Operating Base and Large Hammer vendor prices “have gone up to make them more of a choice.”

You start each life with $10,000 for a loadout, so a FOB module and a Large Hammer is most of one life’s budget. That is the choice Bulkhead is talking about: buy the base, or buy a gun and a vehicle. The same changelog raised several role-track unlock prices at the same time, including the Support track’s Medium Hammer from $10,000 to $25,000 and its Large Hammer from $25,000 to $75,000, so the tool and the role that specialises in it are priced separately.

Wardogs Cash - PCCash for the PC version, for players who would rather buy the module and the hammer than grind the loadout budget for them.From $40.00View offer

What you can build once the FOB is down

Dexerto’s Wardogs wiki groups the buildables into four families, which is a useful way to think about a build order rather than a shopping list:

• Structures: the Forward Operating Base itself, plus Bunker, Recon Tower, Recon Tent and Indirect Fire Shelter.
• Fortifications: Sandbag Wall, Bremer Wall, HBlock, Hedgehog, Barbed Wire, Door and Gate. These are the perimeter.
• Emplacements: L81 Mortar, Talon 9K-SAM and Vanguard CIWS — indirect fire and air defence.
• Utilities: Builder’s Radio, Loudspeaker, Refuel Station and Repair Station.

Bulkhead has published no build-order guidance and no costs for individual buildables, so what follows is reasoning about function, not price. Walls and gates are what stop a vehicle driving straight in, which argues for a perimeter before emplacements; the SAM and the CIWS are what answer an enemy pilot who has noticed your mortar.

Getting the build supplies there

Nothing gets built without supplies on site, and that is a logistics job rather than a building job. PC Gamer’s sequence is: buy the module and the hammer, get a helicopter pilot to load up with FOB supplies (or load them yourself), fly to the tower, then place the FOB, hold left mouse with the hammer to build it — hitting the yellow X marks speeds it up — and spend the rest of the supplies on a perimeter of walls, gates and Hesco blocks.

One more thing worth parking at a finished FOB: the team’s spawn APC, the one with the satellite dish. PC Gamer notes that driving it out from HQ pays royalties every time a teammate spawns on it, so leaving it at your base earns while you build.

Why building pays: the cash side

The figures in this section are PC Gamer’s, measured during the closed beta and published on September 9, 2026. Bulkhead changed several prices at launch and has not published a table of cash rewards, so treat them as the shape of the economy rather than exact current values.

PC Gamer calls building “extremely safe, profitable” and puts a number on it: every productive hammer swing paid $15 in the beta, and completing a build “can be worth more than getting a kill ($1,200 to $1,500).” For comparison, the same guide lists a revive at $900 and a heal at $200. Bulkhead’s Steam description backs the principle without the numbers — reviving, transporting and holding objectives all generate cash, and your bank carries across matches even though your loadout does not.

That is the real argument for the builder role: you are away from the front and earning on a timer rather than on a gunfight. Note what does not follow — the sources do not describe a finished FOB paying out on its own. The recurring income PC Gamer describes comes from the spawn APC parked at it, which pays royalties each time a teammate uses it.

What Season 1 changed for builders

Bulkhead rebalanced progression on the same day it raised the FOB price, and the parts that matter to a builder are these, all from the Season 1 changelog:

• The role track XP curve was rebalanced from level 6 upward, slowing levels 10 to 20 and flattening from 35 on. Level 15 went from 54,750 XP to 110,000 and level 20 from 111,500 to 250,000. Bulkhead’s stated aim was for a median player at 20 to 25 hours to be around level 20, with the top 5% having to grind for “big-ticket items”.
• Artillery moved to Career level 90, and the Heavy Tank to Driver 35.
• 155mm, 122mm and flare deployables now take up more room in your loadout, which competes directly with carrying build supplies.
• Selling a supply crate item under $75 dropped from 25 XP to 1 XP, closing a low-value farming loop.

Three days later, in the Patch 0.11 notes, Bulkhead also set out how it handles exploits: timed bans scaled by history, cash and XP reset to zero, permanent bans for accounts its backend flags as spending time on XP farm servers, and permanent bans for publishing tutorials on abusing systems. Its wording is blunt — “We track every server you enter.” Worth knowing before you follow any guide promising unusually fast cash.

Wardogs unlock and leveling services

If the Season 1 curve is the part you would rather not grind, these are the ones we run.

Wardogs Support Class LevelingSupport is the role track that carries the hammers and the buildables, and Season 1 raised its unlock prices.From $24.00View offer Wardogs Wardog Level BoostThe overall Wardog level, which runs separately from the six role tracks.From $12.00View offer Wardogs Driver Class LevelingDriver, the track the Heavy Tank moved to at level 35 in the Season 1 rebalance.From $24.00View offer

Frequently asked questions

How much does a FOB cost in Wardogs?
$7,500 at the Equipment vendor, raised from $2,500 in the Season 1 changelog on September 9, 2026. A Large Hammer is a further $2,400.

Do I need a hammer to place a FOB?
You need one to build it. Placing the pad is only the first step; the structure goes up by holding left mouse with a hammer, and the yellow X marks are where the swings count most.

Where should I put a FOB?
At a chokepoint your team actually has to hold near the control zone. PC Gamer notes there is already a default FOB at the tower nearest your spawn, so putting yours in the same place adds little. Bulkhead has not published placement rules.

Can I build anywhere on the map?
Not confirmed. Bulkhead has not published the rules for where building is allowed; what the sources establish is that the module is the thing you buy, place and hammer up before the rest of the buildables list is any use to you.

Does building really pay more than killing?
PC Gamer measured a completed build at $1,200 to $1,500 in the closed beta, more than a kill. Bulkhead has not published its own cash table, and launch changed several prices, so treat that as a beta figure.

What is the best build order?
Not confirmed by Bulkhead, which has published no build-order guidance. Perimeter walls and gates before emplacements is the order that follows from their defensive function and from what actually kills a young FOB.

Sources and update history

• Bulkhead / Team17, WARDOGS on Steam (game description, Early Access notes, released September 10, 2026), checked September 19, 2026
• Bulkhead, Pre-Load Live & Season 1 Changelog, September 9, 2026 — FOB and hammer vendor prices, XP curve, role-track moves
• Bulkhead, Scheduled Maintenance & Patch 0.11, September 12, 2026 — exploit and ban policy, server browser changes
• PC Gamer, How to make money fast in Wardogs, September 9, 2026 — FOB build steps and beta cash figures
• Dexerto, Wardogs Wiki: All Buildables, checked September 19, 2026

Update history: Published September 19, 2026. Facts last checked September 19, 2026 against the sources above.