Cover, block, brick, enclose -- whatever you want to call it, it means placing building blocks all over your own team's objective cubes. Most cubes start out with some basic ground or marble blocks around the bottom, just on top of the indestructible steel blocks. If these are simple ground blocks, meaning they take only three tool hits to destroy, and sometimes if they are marble, taking six hits like brick blocks, players will almost instinctively break them just to get the cube more out in the open. If you're covering the cube, you would then replace these blocks with building blocks of your own, i.e. ice, crates, bricks, or sandbags. You would place them, layer by layer, around the cube, all the way up to the top, and then fill in the space between them directly over the cube. Once you've finished this, congratulations! You've probably doomed your team to failure, or at least a much harder time protecting your base.

Let's assume you're not just going to take my word for it when I say covering the cube as I've described is a bad idea. Allow me to explain what it means in the context of the actual game. If you don't cover a cube, it's more vulnerable to ranged attacks, and enemies can run around freely when they're whacking it. Some characters may also have a tough time getting on top of the cube to attack or chase, depending on the surroundings. However, this also means that enemies have a harder time hiding from defenders, whether they be turrets, Tesla Coils, defending heroes, etc.

Now, if one or more heroes decided they felt like covering in the cube, ranged attacks will take a little more doing before the cube starts taking damage, depending on what was used to cover it. Attacking players will also be forced to break through the barrier, though much faster, before the cube is in trouble. Unfortunately, covering the cube has also given enemy heroes an opportunity to exploit a tactic known as burrowing, ticking, digging in, etc. An enemy quickly destroys a single covering block, and then places just two of their own building blocks, covering their entry point. This protects the clever attacker from nearly all attempts to stop him/her, at least until a defending hero can bring out their tool and dig the enemy out of their little hidey hole. All this time, the cube is taking a significant amount of damage, making it seem like covering the cube was, in fact, a terrible idea.

The important thing to note about covering the cube is that MOST weapons can't hit enemies who have burrowed into a cube cover. There is, however, one character who excels at providing unmoving enemies with a slow, painful death. "Doc", Eliza Doolally. This heroine has Poison Traps, Gas Grenades, and, after reaching level 10, an activated ability which all deal damage to enemies no matter how many blocks separate the Doc and her targets. It is also worth pointing out that Vander Graaf's Electric Cage ability as well as the jet exhaust and toxic waste from the recently added Roly Poly Fat Fat also penetrate blocks, though they aren't quite as reliable as Doc.

Now that we know the secret to why covering the cube might actually be viable, we can start getting into details about when and how a cube should be covered. It should be obvious that covering the cube is a bad idea when you have Tony defending with his turrets. If you happen to have Eliza, and not Tony, defending, covering the cube is not only helpful, but practically necessary for an effective defense. The Doc can deal pretty decent damage, but only if her targets aren't able to just run away when they get a whiff of her poison. Sure, she can hit things with her primary, the Globe Gun (assuming you can aim, unlike me), but if you're banking your whole defense on being able to get consistent headshots with an arcing projectile to stop teleporting ninjas from using hit-and-run tactics on your cube and/or face, your team will suffer the consequences. If an enemy finds themselves breathing deadly fumes while surrounded by layers of bricks and sandbags, they will panic and probably die as Eliza laughs like the maniac she is.

So, we have Doc defending, perhaps with Vander or Roly supporting her, and no turrets around being useless against enemies that know what they're facing. How exactly can we maximize the effectiveness of our covered-cube defense strategy? The main idea is that we have to force enemy heroes to take as long as possible, moving very slowly, as they make their way to our cube, so that Doc's gas can go to work. Your instinct might then say to spread glue as far as the eye can see. While this can work to an extent, glue only takes one hit from practically anything to be destroyed (also giving the enemy 10 bricks if they did so with their tool), and most mobility-classified characters can just leap from a high point and land right on your cube, completely avoiding any glue you may have placed.

Remember, Doc's gas, regardless of the source, does not stack with any other gas damage, and only deals about 15 damage per second. If your enemy can reach the cube in less than five seconds, you're in trouble. But, it doesn't matter how long the enemy takes to dig their way to the cube if they're not suffering from poison while they do it. As such, our game begins with placing some Poison Traps around the cube, so enemies will be choking even if our Doc happens to be waiting on a respawn.


Make sure your traps are placed on blocks that are at least as strong as bricks, which means bricks, marble, perk-upgraded ice, the mighty sandbags, or indestructible steel. Beware placing them directly on the steel around the cube, however, as the traps' detection radius may not reach enemies who land on top of the cube.


Once you've got a few Poison Traps laid out, it's time to start covering. "Covering", however may not be the best word for what you actually want to do. What you want to do is BURY the cube. The more layers of junk you pile on the cube, the longer it will take for enemies to clear it out of the way, and the more time they'll spend sitting in your gas clouds. I would suggest making the first layer out of sandbags for that extra few seconds of protection, but sandbags just take too long to build for it to be practical to surround the cube more than that. Thus, bricks should be your go-to block for piling on the cube. If you want to practice, the map called Parapet is ideal for what I like to call the "Brick Bathtub" defense.


There's only one cube to defend, it starts out surrounded by a floor of marble (which, again, is as strong as bricks), and beyond that is plenty of ground blocks to limit your enemies' options. It should become apparent at this point that, like with most defensive, or offensive strategies, radar coverage is critical. You can try to keep the entire cube soaked in death gas with some ammo blocks, but it's much more effective to aim your Gas Grenades at your target, which means you need to know where they are.

Once you actually try to build this defense, it should also become apparent that covering the cube like this can take time, sometimes more time than you have to prepare. Even if you can get a few layers of brick on the cube, you'll be running out of resources much quicker than you'd think, and you'll have to rely on your teammates to take care of radars and cutting down structures. You might just have enough time to drop some health and ammo, which is also critical as Doc's Gas Grenades are in very limited supply and must be restocked constantly in order to maintain her defense.

Since you have to plan things out wisely, and your time is very limited, keep your goal in mind. Regardless of what direction the enemy attacks from, you must force them to dig for as long as possible to get to the cube. In order to ensure this, your covering should start to look more like a ball, providing equal protection from every angle without wasting time or resources on partial layers that the enemy can just go around.


Even after the match has begun, you should continue constructing layers while you wait for the enemy to engage you. Be careful, though, as you, playing Doc, are the keystone of your defense, so you must try harder than with most characters (especially Tony) to keep yourself alive. If you die as Tony, your turrets can still defend themselves and the cube. If you die as Eliza, only your Poison Traps have any reasonable chance of killing the attackers. Since you have covered the cube, and the enemy will likely still try to cover their entrance, your allies will be hard pressed to give chase and even put a scratch on the enemy as they burrow their way inside, so be there to drop some Gas Grenades or use your activated ability to put the hurt on.

Your biggest threats will be long-range bombers like Cogwheel (that over-powered piece of... metal). They can, to an extent, "dig" into your cover while remaining outside, thus avoiding your main sources of damage. These characters must either be handled by your allies, or by your Globe Gun. Thankfully, these explosives take much longer to reach that creamy cube center than a hero digging around with his/her tool, so you can kill them, then start rebuilding what they were able to damage.

This brings us to another important point -- maintenance. Much like how Tony has to heal his turrets, so, too, must Doc repair her cover. Unfortunately, since you're not likely to use this tactic with a Tony around, your bricks/sandbags can't be repaired, only replaced. When you see some of your precious blocks have been severely damaged, assuming you're not immediately under fire, you should take the time to finish breaking those blocks and replacing them with fresh new ones, preferably of the same type. What exactly is "severely damaged"? That comes down to situation and preference, but I would recommend replacing anything with two or fewer tool hits remaining to destroy, so bricks that look like this:













Or this:













Should be replaced.

Every game of Block N Load is different, and sometimes this defense will work beautifully, and sometimes it'll fail miserably, just like any defense that could ever be conceived. There are, however, a few things you can look out for that could give you an edge.

If you're going up against one or more Cogwheels, his mortars are likely going to make any cover look like wet paper, so consider discussing with your team about switching up roles, possibly having Doc go on offense and having someone else, someone with more mobility and killing power, take over the defense.

If you've got a Yeti on your team, have him use his Avalanche on top of your cover, whenever he can, once you've finished it. Snow only takes one hit from a tool, but every second counts, and snow is actually decent at stopping some ranged explosives, thus preserving your more important bricks and sandbags so you don't have to worry about replacing them as much. Also, as of update 2.4, Yury's ice blocks are now much more durable, especially with the ice durability perk, making them even stronger than bricks, in addition to no longer causing your teammates to lose traction, while still having that effect on enemies. As such, having a yeti build lots of ice around the cube instead of bricks is an extra bonus to your overall defense.

Always communicate with your team, but especially make sure they know that you're going to be covering the cube. This, like any defense, is much faster and easier when more people pitch in to help, whether it's layering on bricks, dropping radars or health and ammo, or even digging ground out of the way so you can place stronger blocks. You're almost certain to meet some resistance, and some people will flat-out grief you by placing or destroying blocks so you just can't get a solid cover. Remind them that you're the one handling defense (though you can't very well do it alone), and that this is the strategy you're going with, win or lose. If all else fails, let them defend, and go raid the enemy base.

The best way to make this defense even more powerful is to have two Doc Elizas defending it at the same time. If you're alone, you can die from any number of things, and then your cover, while able to slow enemies down, can't really stop anything for long. Eliza is the one that really makes sure enemies never see the cube. Killing two at the same time is much harder than just killing one, just remember that even with two Docs, your gas damage will not stack, so don't waste your ammo or resources.

If someone starts going after you instead of your cover, which they inevitably will, drop some Gas Grenades with alt-fire and run around your cube like a chicken with its head cut off until someone dies. Hopefully, you have some health and ammo crates scattered around the cube to help you survive even longer.

If you've got multiple cubes to defend, it's very important that you start defending the next cube before the enemies get to it. While it sucks to leave a cube that still has a little health and just give up on it, the alternative is to get steamrolled the rest of the way and lose the whole match. Also make sure you drop at least one or two radars on every cube before the game starts in case any sneaky foes try to take over while you're not looking.

Unfortunately, as of a recent update, Brain role characters no longer have the ability to bring radars with them into battle, so the responsibility of making sure you can see enemies burrowing toward your cube falls entirely upon your Brawn role teammates. If, somehow, you end up on a team with no one having radars, well, you're probably screwed anyway, but this particular defense strategy becomes even less easily executed.

If you don't have a Doc committed to this defense, then don't do it. If you're not going to do it right, don't do it. If anyone on your team is trying to sabotage you like a two-year-old, don't do it. Otherwise, bring on the bricks, the gas, and the mayhem. Your enemies will hate you for it.

If you have anything you want to say to me about this guide or anything else, please, comment! And don't be afraid to tell your teammates to look for this guide if they don't believe you when you try to convince them this is legit.

Best of luck out there, Blockheads.