Wardogs: How to Get a Kit From the Equipment Vendor

There is no class select screen in Wardogs. Every life you spend starts at your base, at a single NPC, with a wallet and a shopping list. You buy the gun, the bag, the bullets, the vest, and the bandage, and then you walk out with whatever you could afford. Die, and that list is gone.

Quick answer: Open the map, walk to the Equipment Vendor marker at your base, press E to open the shop, then buy a primary weapon, a backpack, ammo, gear, and medical items across the Equipment, Gear, and Items tabs. Confirm the total on the Overview tab and hit Purchase — the cash is deducted and the kit is equipped on you.

Player standing empty-handed in the muddy base yard next to a yellow truck before buying a kit — Leaving the vendor with nothing means fighting with nothing. Image: BULKHEAD

Finding the Equipment Vendor at your base

The vendor sits inside your spawn base, and it is marked on the map. Pull the map up before you wander — the icon is labelled and easy to miss on foot, since the base is busy with other players doing the same shopping run.

Open the map while you are in the base and look for the Equipment Vendor icon. Note roughly where it sits relative to your spawn point so you are not circling buildings.

Walk up to the NPC until the interaction prompt appears on screen. Press E to open the shop interface. Your current cash is displayed in the menu — a fresh account starts with $10,000 to spend.

What each vendor tab sells

The shop is split into tabs, and a complete kit means touching most of them. Nothing carries over from a previous life, so treat every tab as a checklist rather than a browsing menu.

Tab	What you buy there
Overview	Your assembled loadout, slot by slot, plus the running total and the Purchase button
Equipment	Primary weapons, sidearms, attachments such as optics, and backpacks
Gear	Armor, tactical vests, and utility items like parachutes
Items	Medical supplies, grenades, tools, and field gear
Loose Ammo	Ammunition sold by box and by caliber

Building the kit at the vendor

Order matters more than you would expect here, because the gun decides the ammo and the bag decides whether you can carry any of it.

Open the Equipment tab and pick a primary weapon. A Scout Rifle TD runs $550 and is available early; anything greyed out is locked behind a role or account level rather than price.

Equipment Vendor Overview screen with the Primary Weapon slot highlighted during selection — The Overview screen tracks every slot as you fill it, with the Primary Weapon slot first in line. Image: BULKHEAD

Buy a backpack before you try to buy ammunition. If you skip it, the shop throws a BACKPACK REQUIRED prompt and blocks the purchase. A Wardog Lvl. 5 pack costs $175 and is enough for a starter kit.

BACKPACK REQUIRED prompt in the Wardogs vendor menu blocking an ammunition purchase — The BACKPACK REQUIRED dialog stops the ammo purchase until you add storage to the kit. Image: BULKHEAD

Buy ammunition that matches your weapon’s caliber. For a 5.56 rifle, 5.56MM STANDARD (FMJ) is the cheap baseline at $15. Hollow point and armor piercing loads cost more per round, and heavier calibers cost far more again.

Add attachments while you are still in the Equipment tab. A 6X Precision Rifle Scope is $340, which is a real chunk of a starter budget — only take glass you will actually use at the ranges you fight at.

Switch to the Gear tab for carrying and survival items. A Small Tac Vest costs $125 and a Basic Parachute costs $50, the latter being worth it whenever helicopters are the way squads get to the zone.

Open the Items tab and buy medical supplies. A Bandage is the cheapest way to keep yourself in the fight; the Individual First Aid Kit heals back to full but costs $800 and sits behind Medic Level 9.

Go back to the Overview tab, check every slot is filled, and press Purchase. The total is deducted from your cash and the kit is equipped immediately — you do not need to manually equip anything afterwards.

Starter kit prices and what it costs at checkout

A complete, functional first loadout does not need to eat your bankroll. The build below checks out at $1,287, leaving $8,512 in the wallet from a $9,800 balance — enough to rebuy the same kit several times over after bad lives.

Slot	Item	Price
Primary	Scout Rifle TD	$550
Storage	Wardog Lvl. 5 backpack	$175
Ammo	5.56MM Standard (FMJ)	$15
Attachment	6X Precision Rifle Scope	$340
Gear	Small Tac Vest	$125
Gear	Basic Parachute	$50
Medical	Bandage	$100

Note: prices get retuned between builds, so treat these as ratios rather than fixed numbers. The vendor menu always shows the current cost before you commit.

Why the vendor won’t let you buy something

Three things block a purchase, and only three. Everything else is a budget problem.

No backpack in the kit. Ammunition and most carried items need storage first, and the shop will tell you so with a BACKPACK REQUIRED prompt.
Level requirement not met. Weapons, gear, and attachments each have a minimum role or Wardog level, and some also need a separate lump-sum cash unlock on top of the per-life price.
Not enough cash. Unlocking an item does not make it affordable — you can own the right to buy a gun and still be too broke to take it out.

Confirming the kit is equipped

Two things confirm the purchase went through. Your cash total in the vendor menu drops by the amount shown next to the Purchase button, and the Overview tab stops showing empty slots. Close the shop and you should be holding the weapon you bought, with the backpack and vest on your character model.

If the weapon is in your hands but you have no rounds, you bought a caliber that does not match the gun. Reopen the vendor and check the ammo type against the weapon’s chambering before you deploy.

Player aiming a scoped rifle inside the safe zone after buying a kit from the Equipment Vendor — The purchased rifle and optic in hand, still inside the safe zone before deploying. Image: BULKHEAD

The habit worth building early is buying a kit you can replace, not the most expensive one you can currently afford. Unlocks and account cash persist between matches, but the gun, the ammo, and the bandage in your pocket do not survive your death. Two or three cheap lives teach you the cost of dying faster than one very expensive one.