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Call of Duty: Vanguard is now available with the new Der Anfang Zombies map, which is an objective-based experience with demonic themes and new features that feels much different than Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies mode. Here we provide some tips and weapon loadout recommendations to help you survive high rounds of Der Anfang.
Start with a strong weapon loadout.
There are no “Wall Buy” guns available in Vanguard Zombies, so you’re left with the luck of the Mystery Box, random drops, or small loot chests unless you start with a good weapon loadout. Additionally, Vanguard Zombies lacks Cold War’s tedious grind to update your starter weapon to a higher rarity. Instead, you simply need to equip your starter weapon with some good attachments and save points for upgrading with the Pack-a-Punch machine.
The Einhorn Revolving shotgun is the undisputed best weapon in Vanguard Zombies. Most of the shotguns seem pretty powerful in Der Anfang, but a fully Pack-a-Punched Einhorn Revolving can one hit kill zombies even in high rounds. It also has the highest fire rate of all the shotguns in Vanguard.
Here are the recommended attachments:
Muzzle: M97 Full ChokeBarrel: Sawed-OffStock: Removed StockUnderbarrel: Carver ForegripMagazine: 16 Gauge 7 Round CylinderRear Grip: Pine Tar Grip
If you want something other than a shotgun, you can try the MP-40 submachine gun. With the right attachments, you can increase the movement speed and ammo count of Vanguard’s best submachine gun.
Here are the recommended attachments:
Muzzle: Recoil BoosterBarrel: Krausnick 317MM 04BOptic: Slate ReflectorStock: Removed StockUnderbarrel: Carver ForegripMagazine: 9MM 64 Round DrumsRear Grip: Pine Tar Grip
For surviving high rounds in Der Anfang, the recommended Field Upgrade to pair with your weapon is Aether Shroud, which cloaks you from enemies for five seconds. This is great for getting yourself out of a bad situation and repositioning on the map.
Get all the perks.
In Der Anfang, there are five perks that you can equip. It’s important to grab these right away, as for the first time in Zombies history, the base tier perk is free. These perks can be upgraded for additional buffs to each perk ability.
For the upgrade tiers, focus first on Fiendish Fortitude, Diabolical Damage, Venomous Vigor. These are important perks to increase your health, critical damage, and health regen speed. Eventually you’ll want to have all five upgraded, but these are good perks to start with. Here is our full guide to unlocking and upgrading each perk.
Equip the best Covenants.
Der Anfang’s new Altar of Covenants feature allows you to earn powerful buffs to equip as you progress in higher rounds. You’ll need to complete at least one of Der Anfang’s three objectives before you can use it, as competing objectives will grant you with a Sacrificial Heart item to exchange at the altar for a Covenant ability. Here is our full Covenant guide for everything you need to know about using this new Vanguard Zombies feature, but essentially you want to equip the game’s most powerful Covenants.
Death Blow is a great Covenant to choose. In Zombies, headshots are important in high rounds, and the Death Blow Covenant will reward you for those critical kills by returning bullets to your clip. And less reloading is always a good thing.
If you’re playing co-op, the Resurrectionist Covenant is another great option. It helps you revive teammates faster, and if you get lucky enough to get the Legendary rarity of this Covenant, you can revive teammates much faster and automatically revive any nearby players.
I’d recommend not wasting any Sacrificial Hearts on Splatterfest, which is the Covenant that says enemies killed by explosions may explode. It sounds like it would be a useful ability to have, but Splatterfest’s explosion isn’t very powerful even with the Legendary rarity of the Covenant. It doesn’t kill or even deal much damage to nearby zombies, especially beyond the first few rounds, so it feels more like a visual effect than a beneficial ability.
Don’t forget your armor.
Just like Black Ops Cold War, you collect Salvage from dead enemies, crystals, and chests. This is the currency you spend at the Crafting Table to buy and upgrade three tiers of armor. You can also repair lost armor as well. It costs 750 for tier 1 armor, 1,500 for tier 2, and a whopping 3,000 Salvage for tier 3 armor. It feels really difficult to get 3,000 Salvage in Der Anfang, so make sure to grab every piece you see.
Loot chests and crystals.
There are small item chests and clusters of red crystals on Der Anfang that can be looted for random items. Lower rounds will likely net you something like Salvage or lethal equipment, but in later rounds you can often score a decent Pack-a-Punched weapon. This is great if you still need a second upgraded weapon, but ultimately, the Einhorn Revolving shotgun should be the only gun you really need to survive Der Anfang. Mostly, I just use these in hopes of getting Monkey Bombs or Decoys, as they are good equipment options to have on hand while attempting high round objectives.
Make the best use of your objectives.
Currently, there are three objective types in Der Anfang. Blitz requires you to simply survive a set area for a specific time limit. You don’t even have to kill the zombies here; you just have to survive. Transmit requires you to escort a floating head around the map, and Harvest requires you to collect runes dropped from dead enemies to deposit into an obelisk.
Blitz is timed and there’s nothing you can do to extend this objective, but what the game doesn’t tell you is that the other two objectives don’t have time limits. Meaning, if you don’t escort the head or deposit the runes, the zombies keep spawning around you indefinitely. I’m not sure if this is how Treyarch intended the mode to work, but this is currently the best way to grind weapon camos, and additionally help you earn extra points and Salvage in earlier rounds.
Der Anfang doesn’t give you a lot of zombies at once like traditional modes have in the past. It can be really hard to get enough points or Salvage saved up for level 3 armor or tier 3 Pack-a-Punch upgrades before the higher rounds.
It’s random how much available space is given to you for each objective. Sometimes you’ll get a large portion of Shi No Numa or the Apartments, but sometimes you’re given just a tiny room to survive. So, if you get a Harvest or Transmit objective that provides enough space to train the zombies, I’d recommend milking some of that time for kills and collecting Salvage, instead of just rushing through the objectives. I usually only rush to complete them if the objective is located in a really small area that might get too dicey to prolong it.
These tips should help you achieve high rounds in Call of Duty: Vanguard’s Der Anfang map. Additionally, if you’re looking to learn more about the storyline, we have a guide for locating all the story intel on Der Anfang.
