> A hardened war veteran, Gideon regards alien life forms as little more than dangerous animals, obstacles in his missions to recover B! He will not think twice about exterminating any alien pilot—or anyone else for that matter—who gets in his way. He not only commands a devastating amount of ordnance on his ship, he has the resolve to use it. ### Commander Gideon is here to solve your problems with rockets, lasers, and turrets. The Iron Wolf is a dense ship with three unique stand-alone weapon loadouts that let you deal with just about any threat at any range. The Iron Wolf is great for its ability to output damage but its real gift is harassing with rockets and then punishing aggressive engages with an area of CLaWs and Territory Defense. His ability to chase down targets is poor so be ready to really burst down a target so they can’t use their afterburners. - **Packfire Rockets** continually loads a stockpile of mini homing rockets to unleash in rapid fire. These homing rockets have a short duration “safety timer” when launched, doing reduced damage until the safety timer expires. Gideon will usually wait for it to charge up then unleash the maximum rockets at once from a decent range to maximize damage. - **Alpha Cannon** fires short range twin saber lasers that are sustained for as long as Gideon fires the loadout, doing consistent damage to any enemies caught in the twin beams. An excellent loadout for more aggressive Commanders who just want to melt whatever is in front of them, so long as they are careful of their own energy use. - **CLaW** or Centrifugal Laser Ward, is a stationary turret with a rotating laser blade attached. Best used against enemy ships that need to get up close and personal, as well as setting up an intimidating perimeter around friendly targets. - **Territory Defense** is a defensive loadout that deploys a stationary dispersal field at the Iron Wolf’s current position. While inside, **all** ships, both friendly and enemy, are invulnerable and have their loadouts disabled. However, friendly ships enjoy a burst of energy regeneration effect. Gideon will often use this to buy time for more CLaW charges, or simply to disrupt an enemy who is damaging a Shield Device. ### Commanding Gideon in the Iron Wolf 1. The Iron Wolf is a strong mid-range fighter ship, but Packfire Rockets give Gideon a surprising amount of range to harass targets with. 2. Territory Defense can effectively protect structures, temporarily shutting down attack points. 3. CLaW’s are excellent for fly-by deploys on enemy turrets, doing several rounds of damage as they rotate against the stationary targets. ### Flying against Gideon in the Iron Wolf 1. While Gideon has a lot of damage output, they tend to be energy-expensive. Try to prolong combat and let the Iron Wolf be its own enemy. 2. Avoid firing at targets inside Territory Defense, as the shield makes targets inside invulnerable and will deflect your laser projectiles. Heavier weight ships like Jabberwocky can try to physically push targets outside of the shield to make them vulnerable again. 3. With CLaWs and Territory Defense, Gideon’s Iron Wolf can really dig into an area when assaulted. Hit him hard and fast to avoid taking too much damage and to force him to deploy his shield early.

Best use for the claws I’ve encountered? Using it as an obstacle while running or tearing down a shield while ignored. It’s like the worst of Iron Wolfs loadouts :/. Been playing Iron Wolf as a guard dog and it’s actually been working nicely for me, his energy consumption isn’t such a problem when you got 3 turrets and a wall to slow anyone who chases you, and providing heals for mid/blocking enemies from shooting turrets is rewarding. Dude feels like he shouldn’t step away from base unless you have no choice for me.

Never level the CLaWs. They’re useless. No damage done at all, difficult to hit players, not even a decently-sized hitbox so they can mess up chasing players. Skip the CLaWs, level everything else and hull beforehand. Iron Wolf chases pretty well. The rockets give you a constant, accurate stream of damage, and you can shield if they try to turn around and flip the situation on you. I would advise being more aggressive – the Alpha Cannons can shoot through walls, letting you kill off turrets without taking a single shot if you shoot from the right angle.

Claws are useful for dealing dmg to turrets. Use them in conjection with alpha cannons to deal damage to buildings.

I like to lvl alpha cannons and then shield, and basically start to do claws when i’m going in on their base, they are great for laying down as you retreat and also not too shabby for blocking someone in as you melt them with alpha cannons on defense but ultimately yes, i’d say wait till later in the game to upgrade claws. this also means to keep your best techs in ship of course and the alpha cannons and obviously the less needed techs in your claw loadout spots.

Doing anything in the other base aside from being part of a large push you can heal feels like a chore, I don’t enter an enemy base as wolf trying to break their batteries or shield gens, if I’m going in alone its to break some turrets since anyone else can kill the batteries. Really liking this ship, and am laughing my ass off on counter matches when I see enemy wolves get laser for their level 2 while I skate safe to level 3 without having to return to heal, I don’t think I’ve ever been beaten in a race to the level 3 by a wolf who goes laser 2 instead of shield.

Oh yeah. Wolf cannot run away from anything to save its life.

Iron Wolf can actually do an average job of taking out turrets, you use the missiles as they can be fired just outside the range of a tower. This doesn’t take them down as quickly as the lasers, but you should have near full health to take on other players if you are interupted

I’m still a beginner, but I’ve noticed a couple things about Iron Wolf that you can take or leave. **Shield/CLaW Combo** If I’m getting harassed hard enough and know I can’t quite escape (say, by, the vampire ship) you can drop your CLaWs, AND THEN drop your shield on top of them. As far as I can tell it still damages them even if they try to hide in the shield with me, or at least makes them think it’s going to damage them so they run away a short distance (yay running starts). This can also be used on turrets. Get in close, shield, step out against the turret, quick double CLaW, step back in and use it to cover a quick retreat. Further, if you spam CLaWs you can actually have at least three going at once. I haven’t really experimented with it, but I was amused when I dropped two that failed to block someone chasing me, and when I spamed a third they all remained on map. I suspect in terms of quickly demolishing shields that this might be useful. It also might be possible to get more out depending on how long they last, exactly.

To clarify, if they are within the bubble, they won’t get hurt. Sometimes if you are on the edge of the bubble, it doesn’t actually count you as being in the bubble…so be careful there. Not sold on the usefulness of the Claws, however. Comparing them to the missiles, shield or lasers, I pick the others every time. Maybe if they had some sort of slowing effect, or added special damage…anyways for me they are fun, but very low-priority.