The Z20 Lakota is the biggest troop mover in the WARDOGS air roster, and it exists in two separate vendor entries with two separate gates. One is an unarmed transport, the other carries mounted machine guns. Both seat 13, and neither shows up in the world during a match — you buy them, or you walk.
Quick answer: Unlock the transport Z20 Lakota at Pilot level 10 for a one-time $35,000, and the minigun version at Pilot level 25 for a one-time $75,000. Vendor prices are charged separately, every purchase.
Z20 Lakota unlock requirements and prices
Two costs apply to each airframe. The unlock fee is paid once and permanently adds the vehicle to what your account can buy. The price is charged every single time you pull one off the pad.
| Variant | Pilot level | One-time unlock | Price per buy |
|---|---|---|---|
 Z20 Lakota | 10 | $35,000 | $7,400 |
| Z20 Lakota [Miniguns] | 25 | $75,000 | $8,000 |
The two share a chassis and a stat line. Both hit 445 km/h, carry a 120-litre tank, burn 4.4 litres per kilometre, and hold 13 seats and carry flares. The difference is the loadout and the catalogue tab: the plain Z20 Lakota is filed as Transport with no weapons and a 2 crew plus 11 passenger split, while the armed card sits under Combat with 4 crew and 9 passengers.
The transport variant got cheaper to unlock in the Season 1 changelog on 9 September 2026, when its fee was cut from $50,000 to $35,000. That is the figure the vendor charges now.
Pilot level is the only track that counts
WARDOGS has no fixed classes. Progression runs on separate tracks tied to the gear you actually use, so hours spent driving a Humvee earn Driver XP and do nothing for a helicopter gate. Ground transport gates on Driver level, tanks and artillery gate on Wardog level, and every airframe gates on Pilot level. You earn it by flying, ferrying players by air, and fighting from aircraft.
Pilot tops out at level 35 and has 11 levels that grant something. Here is where the helicopters land on that ladder, which is the fastest way to see what you are flying before and after each Lakota.
| Helicopter | Pilot level | Unlock | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
 AH-6M [Miniguns] | 4 | $50,000 | $7,000 |
| Z20 Lakota | 10 | $35,000 | $7,400 |
| AH-6R [Rockets] | 20 | $250,000 | $12,500 |
| Z20 Lakota [Miniguns] | 25 | $75,000 | $8,000 |
 Havoc | 35 | $500,000 | $18,000 |
The MH-6 needs no Pilot unlock at all, so it is the airframe you learn on before level 10. Across the whole Pilot ladder, including music tapes and armoured crates, the one-time fees add up to $959,750.
Cash in WARDOGS is persistent and carries between matches. A destroyed helicopter is money permanently gone from your balance, with no insurance and no replacement, so the real test is whether you can afford to lose the airframe twice.
Where to find the vehicle vendor
Every Z20 Lakota comes from the vehicle vendor in your faction’s safe zone. Neither variant is ever placed on the map during a match, so there is no version of this where you find one parked and take it.
Each of the three factions — Manticore, Lonestar, and Valkyra — has its own vendor positions, and all of them sit outside the playable areas, typically two to five kilometres from the nearest zone. The layout is consistent across the map rotation:
- Bakurani — Manticore to the west, Lonestar to the north, Valkyra to the east.
- Bakurani Outskirts – Jutari — same west, north, east split by faction.
- Ozeti — multiple vendor points per faction, spread across the north, west, and east.
- Zestafona — Manticore east, Lonestar north, Valkyra south-west.
How to buy and launch a Z20 Lakota
How to confirm the unlock worked
An unlock has gone through when the tile in the Air tab is no longer greyed out and shows only its purchase price, with no level requirement or fee attached. From that point the vendor charges $7,400 or $8,000 per buy and never asks for the unlock again on that account.
If the entry is still greyed out, the block is one of two things. Either your Pilot level is short of 10 or 25, or you have the level but not the unlock cash. Both have to clear before the helicopter becomes purchasable.
Even without the unlock, you can still fly one that somebody else bought and shared, since a vehicle owner can open their airframe to squadmates or the whole team.
Which Z20 Lakota variant to buy
The unarmed Z20 Lakota is the cheaper card and the one most players will use for years of account time. It is a bus: 13 seats, no guns, and a job that starts and ends with putting bodies on scoring ground in one wave instead of five. Passengers leaning out with rifles are not a weapons system, and hovering over a contested landing zone in an airframe with no armament puts the whole load in one wreck.
The Z20 Lakota [Miniguns] costs $600 more per purchase and more than double the unlock, and the trade is two mounted machine guns on an airframe with the same 13 seats. It is classed as Combat, but it is still a transport with door guns. The guns buy you a short window of covering fire on the approach, not an orbit — the Havoc and the AH-6R are the airframes built to stay and shoot.
Running either one costs more than the sticker. At 4.4 litres per kilometre, a 120-litre tank does not go far across a full-size map, and repairs and refuels at your safe zone or a team-built FOB with a repair and refuel station are charged, not free. A Fuel Can bought from Headquarters or pulled from a supply crate covers you if you run dry away from a station, and flares will break a heat-seeking lock long enough to change heading.
