Tanks in WARDOGS are not a reward you stumble into. The L2A6 main battle tank is sold by an NPC, it sits behind a progression level, a one-time unlock fee and a per-purchase price, and every dollar of that comes out of the same cash balance you use for guns and armour. BULKHEAD’s shooter launched into Early Access on Steam on September 10th, 2026, and heavy armour is still one of the deepest things in the game to reach.
Quick answer: Walk to a Vehicle Vendor inside a safe zone, open the LAND tab and select the TANK filter, then buy the L2A6 once you meet its Driver level requirement and have the unlock fee plus the purchase price banked.
Find the Vehicle Vendor in a safe zone
Vehicles come from their own vendor, not the equipment vendor. The Vehicle Vendor stands inside safe zones and is marked on the map by a vehicle-shaped icon, so you can pin the location before you set off rather than wandering the base looking for it.
L2A6 cost, level requirement and unlock fee
The tank has two separate costs, which is the part people get caught out by. The unlock fee is a one-off payment that adds the vehicle to what the vendor is willing to sell you. The purchase price is charged every single time you take one out.
| Vehicle | Purchase price | Level gate | One-off unlock |
|---|---|---|---|
| L2A6 (main battle tank) | $14,000 | Driver Level 35 | $500,000 |
| Flakpanzer Gepard (anti-air) | $8,000 | Wardog Level 45 | Not shown on the tile |
Treat those figures as provisional. Pre-release builds printed different numbers for the same tank, including a $74,000 tag on the L2A6 tile in an earlier capture of the vendor, and the level gates have moved too. Prices and requirements are balance levers, so check the tile in front of you rather than a number you read somewhere.
For scale, an account starts with $10,000 in cash, once. The L2A6 purchase price alone is more than that, and the unlock fee is fifty times it.
Driver, Pilot and Wardog are three separate levels
The single biggest way to waste time here is grinding the wrong counter. Land transport gates on Driver level, aircraft gate on Pilot level, and the general account progression is Wardog level. Hours behind a wheel will never unlock a helicopter, and vice versa.
Tanks and artillery sat on the Wardog track during the beta, which is why some requirement lines read Wardog Level 35 or 45 rather than Driver. BULKHEAD’s Joe Brammer has said that placement was a side effect of compressed beta progression, and that armour moves onto the Driver role for Early Access. In practice that means driving is the route to a tank, and any tank unlock figure from the beta period should be treated as out of date until you see it on the tile yourself.
How to bank the cash for a tank
Cash carries between matches and what you lose stays lost, so the level gate is rarely the thing that stalls people. The money is. Support work pays alongside combat, which means you can clear both gates without ever winning a gunfight.
| Action | Payout |
|---|---|
| Tactical deployment, per player you fly into the zone | $195 and 50 XP |
| That passenger surviving roughly 15 seconds after the drop | A further $500 |
| Supply crate delivered into a friendly FOB | Around $2,000 |
| An enemy you marked being eliminated by anyone | Cash and XP, regardless of who fired |
| Eliminations, revives and objective time inside the Hot Zone | Double the standard rate |
| Repairs with a repair tool | Cash and XP |
Ferrying squads is the strongest of these because you keep earning from your passengers’ kills after they land, and because you buy one helicopter and keep flying it. A Hot Zone fighter rebuys a full kit every death, which is exactly the spend that keeps a large cash target out of reach. Skipping body armour, bags and weapon upgrades while you save is worth as much as the XP.
Tip: if nobody at the pad needs a lift, load the helicopter with supply crates and run FOB resupply instead. Trucks can carry crates too, but the round trip is slower.
How to tell the purchase worked
Once the requirement clears, the tile stops printing its level line and padlock bar and simply shows the price. Buying then deducts the cash and the vehicle appears at your team’s spawn point, under the awnings, ready to crew.
If the vendor still refuses, it is almost always one of these:
- You have levelled the wrong track. Check whether the tile reads DRIVER LVL or WARDOG LVL and grind that one.
- You paid the unlock fee and expected the tank to be free. The unlock sits on top of the price, not instead of it.
- Your balance dropped below the price because you died carrying expensive gear between the save and the purchase.
- You are at the equipment vendor rather than the Vehicle Vendor. They are separate NPCs with separate menus.
Before you drive it out
Buying the tank does not arm it. Vehicle weapons are not always loaded on purchase, so buy ammo separately before rolling out. Fuel and ammo are both finite and top up at base, or from a gas can bought at the base vendor, and a repair tool with a spare battery is worth carrying whenever you plan to drive.
Note: the counterplay to armour is well developed. IEDs, C4, launchers on the Support track, anti-vehicle drones and FOB anti-air emplacements all exist, and a tank parked without infantry around it is a large, expensive target. A vehicle is the biggest single thing you can put on the table in WARDOGS, and losing it means paying the purchase price again from a balance you spent weeks building.
