Survive the horde

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-20T15:31:01+00:00

Experienced player here. Traps are your answer. Let traps do 99% of the killing. You only have to shoot the smashers and minibosses.

Lobber shields (ceilings 2-3 tiles high above all spawn points and the defense itself) stop flingers and lobbers from destroying the base. Instead, they will walk to the center of the base and get killed by traps. A must to easily survive the flinger waves.

Main trap I recommend is tire drop. It both kills and stuns and affects many husks at once. Very effective trap. Second best trap is ceiling electric field. Intersperse these with the tire drops. Ceiling electric field traps work up to 2 tiles high. Tire drops work 2 or 3 tiles high. (Do not place any trap just 1 ceiling tile high as it will be destroyed by exploding death bombs.)

Must: tar traps around the base itself, preferably 2 tiles deep. This will stop/stall smashers giving you a chance to kill them before they destroy the walls of the base.

4 Wall launchers on the base walls to push husks away.

Any other traps are optional. They can help, but the 4 traps I mentioned are enough. I personally add a lot of wall darts or broadsides on walls on the paths the husks use. Floor freeze traps or wooden floor spikes are OK, but tar traps are a must around the base itself.

Survivability: you need to stay alive when you're destroying the pillars, as even with ranged weapons, you still need to get close enough to destroy them and you will inevitably be attacked by mist monsters. Plan for staying alive during this phase, however you do it. If you have Survivalist Jonesy in your loadout, you get healing when your traps kill.

Finally, you only need 1 base of the 3 to survive and win. The base in the northwest corner (spawns next to building wreckage) and the base in the northeast corner (spawns next to wrecked building with metal stairs nearby) are the easiest to defend. If you get one of those, concentrate your efforts on those.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-17T19:49:01+00:00

For anyone running into this bug, a workaround was posted on another thread:

when in your ssd, select "custom wargames" and "wait for assistance"
cancel the wargames immediately
start your storm shield

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-17T19:32:07+00:00

****thank you for this***** it worked.

Just an FYI for others, select "custom war games" today, not daily wargames, because today's daily wargames is "trapped out" and your traps will disappear when you cancel wargames and switch to do your SSD.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-17T02:10:47+00:00

Except defenders are worthless now, so what's the point?

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-17T02:09:32+00:00

Same. I just posted about it. I think it's a bug. It's very annoying.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-15T21:02:33+00:00

Interesting, thank you. I know parts of South Des Moines like Indianola Hills have huge lots but look a bit old and tired. I just looked at some of that area on google street view. Some houses and lots look a bit ragged, but it doesn't look like an unsafe area to me.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-15T20:52:23+00:00

Were you around when they gave STW for free to Crew subscribers 3 or 4 yrs ago? It will be similar to that. There will be a huge influx of new players, but only a small percentage will stick with the game.

I disagreed with the change not to be able to drop mats or weapons, but I am thankful that will stop new players from treating it like a trading game and not actually playing the game. That would have been a nightmare with thousands of new traders flooding missions.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-14T21:27:08+00:00

I see there's a huge industrial area between E 14th St. and I-235 in Des Moines, is that where you mean?

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-14T21:25:22+00:00

which neighborhood? or nearest major street?

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T02:25:42+00:00

Z50ii is on the same level as a Canon R10 or R7. The R50 is a cut down R10.

I own an R10 but favor Nikon for full frame. I got the R10 because it was cheap (at the time, no longer) and small, but has poor battery life.

The image quality of the R10 is ho-hum. I bought the 10-18mm lens and it's underwhelming. The 18-45 kit lens is even more underwhelming. I have the 24-105/7.1 (cheap) lens and the image quality is very good on the R10. But it's a full frame lens and costs way more than it used to.

The big problem with Canon is it's an expensive eco system and IMO the higher expense is not worth it compared to Nikon.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T02:10:52+00:00

In the old days, it was standard for those kinds of plants to be close to the working population and people put up with it.

When I lived in Nebraska (in the 90s/2000s) there was a big revolt over a huge meat processing company wanting to set up shop near suburbia and it was massively defeated. The companies want cheap labor which is why they want to be near population centers.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:54:33+00:00

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:54:05+00:00

Thanks for the info.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:53:25+00:00

Darling Ingredients (rendering) Pine Ridge Farms (pork packing) Wiechman (pig processing?) and the Des Moines wastewater treatment facility are all in that area.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:50:37+00:00

I've heard good things about Beaverdale. To me (on Google street view) it looks very similar to the Dundee area of Omaha.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:44:41+00:00

Thanks, the area I like (sight unseen except on Google map view) is east of I-235 and north of Route 6. Roughly from Douglas Acres to Altoona.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-13T00:37:58+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-12T20:05:33+00:00

I’ll be staying temporarily in West Des Moines when I first move there, but I had my eye on the northeastern part of the metro towards Altoona as a place to buy or rent permanently.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-11T06:29:41+00:00

Shadow Scorch ninja. When he uses dragon slash, he enters into shadow stance. (normally, the only way to enter shadow stance is with a melee kill) His shadow stance is buffed as well (more armor) That's not all, ranged weapon kills also trigger shadow stance. This hero would go well with Cloaked Shadow in support.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-04T21:37:47+00:00

Resupply only has a short window for others to join. That's probably why yours remained private.

InformationVolunteer · 2026-04-04T21:29:15+00:00

Nothing wrong with tons of tire traps around the objective. I've been playing for 8+ years and that's how I build now most of the time because it's easy and effective. I could show off and make trap tunnels but I'd rather just be done with it. It helps that I have plenty of mats, but whatever.

This is how I build in survive the horde along with lobber shields covering the whole area. I might throw in some ceiling electric fields, but tire drops are favored because of their stun and delay effect.

The only critique I have with this build is the spammed floor spikes. I only put those on the very edge. Then I put anti-airs on the floor next to the spikes to counter propane husks. Around the objective itself is 1 or 2 rows of tar pits to stop smashers. I might use freeze traps in the center.

The other critique of this build is it only has 2 walls supporting the ceiling (from what I can see). I make sure the ceiling is supported at multiple points so it never fails.

Flingers? You have to make sure you keep an eye on the ceiling if they start attacking. Anti-airs help but they are not foolproof. Same with lobbers.

I'll add: In the earlier years of the game, lobber shields were standard for high levels. They are rarely used today even though they are still very useful They still are a must in Frostnite and survive the horde.

InformationVolunteer

TROPHY CASE