Tactics for Gold Rush

Published June 27, 2008

Battlefield: Bad Company™ is at its most strategic when played on Xbox LIVE® with a group of dedicated friends willing to work together. The available tactics and situation-specific strategies are nearly limitless. The following tips should take care of many of the game's fundamentals and leave you free to contemplate and execute your own more creative plans of attack.

Might want to break out the Demolition kit there.

Highlight The Enemy

Anytime you shoot directly at an enemy you'll highlight their location, placing an orange dot over their head. This highlight targets the enemy for your whole team as well, so be sure to squeeze off a few rounds even if they're too far away to kill. There's no more important tactical advantage than knowing the precise location of your opponents.

No Charge Required

Whenever you reduce a base to a single remaining gold crate, you can bet that it will be well fortified, making planting and maintaining a charge nearly impossible against a quality team. You don't need a charge to destroy the crate though. Instead, target the crate with rocket-launcher fire, grenades, vehicle-mounted machineguns, and cannons from afar.

Spawn Considerations

Dropping into the battlefield is obviously fraught with peril. It's worth your time to consider a few options before deciding when and how to spawn, especially when on offense, as every death nudges your team that much closer to defeat.

• Take a close look at your squad mate's surroundings before choosing to spawn with your squad. If they're well away from the action, it may make more sense to spawn back at base and head back to the front in a vehicle.
• If you spawn right next to your squad mate while they're being shot, chances are you'll be smoked too before you can gather your bearings. Take a few seconds to ask your squad mate whether it's safe to spawn nearby.
• Caution is the order of the day when you see you're the "last man standing" in your squad. Rather than push forward and put yourself at risk, stay patient, cover up, and wait for your buddies to spawn around you.

Move together, win together.

Retreat and Blitz

When it's clear that the Attackers are on the cusp of destroying a base's second gold crate, it's time to cut your losses and retreat to the next base. Don't stick around fighting it out. Instead, entrench yourself in defensive positions at the next base. Otherwise, you risk a sneaky Attacker blitzing the base and setting charges before your team can react.

Conversely, if you're an Attacker and you're confident your buddies have the second crate's destruction well in hand, try heading to the absolute limit of the map nearest the next base. Then, when the crate blows and the next section of the map opens up, you're in position to blitz the base ahead of the Defenders.

Defensive Line of Sight

Often the best defensive position isn't right on top of the gold crate, but rather across the way in another building, up above in an attic, or really any place that offers direct line of sight to the objective. This way, you can lure unsuspecting Attackers towards the crate and take them down from your unseen defensive position.

One headshot will do the job.

Squad Points

The squad system rewards teamwork with your squad mates with extra bonus points. Assist a teammate with a kill and you may earn an extra three points, but assist a fellow squad member and you'll double that. Bad Company is designed with the four-player squad in mind, so always work, move, attack, and defend together whenever possible.

Dog Tags

Wondering how to snag dog tags for achievements or trophies? You don't pick them up off of KIA opponents, but rather collect them any time you knife an opponent with the Y button. Try focusing your melee attacks only on unsuspecting enemies.

Rolling on Through

Many of the bases in Bad Company sport troublesome barriers at their entranceways, effectively blocking vehicles from rolling deeper into the fray. However, a few well-placed cannon shots should reduce these obstacles to rubble. Don't be fooled if they don't fall on the first or second shot. Keep up your fire and they should give way eventually.

One dog tag coming right up!

Kit Gear

The kits are defined by their default weaponry and their kit-specific unlockable gear found in the Unlocks menu. Focus first on unlocking these items rather than the various guns. The Recon and Support classes in particular just aren't complete without their respective laser designator and mortar strike attacks.

Make a Hole

Environmental destruction isn't just eye candy. Use it strategically to make an entrance point in order to expose a gold crate or enemies hiding out in a building. Conversely, when playing on Defense, do your best to keep the buildings intact. Knocking down walls with haphazard fire can inadvertently hand the Attackers a decided advantage.

Now go find some buddies, create a squad and wreak havoc on the enemy with the preceding tips and your own well-orchestrated tactics!

Article by Ryan Treit