Empty Barrel

Empty Barrel
Barrels stolen from a warehouse. Strong and heavy enough to throw on someone from above or to block someone's path.
Main Stats
Rarity	Stars Reward
Health Melee Damage
Prepare Time	10s
Rage Cost	6
Abilities
Perks	Non-documented: Knockback resistance
Unlock Requirements
Stars	1
Player Level	Any

Empty Barrel is a slightly-dented blue steel drum.

It's a Star Reward, obtained for free when players collect 1 star and is the first unit reward to be earned.

Overview

Empty Barrel is a primarily offensive Support Item. It's a barrel that can be dropped on enemies to deal melee damage to them. It can also deal damage to human units and other support items. Once it's placed, the barrel acts as an obstacle – if it stands in an enemy's way, they will attempt to destroy it.

Being a support item, EB can be dropped on almost any spot of the battlefield, and has all resistances typical for units of that class.

Gameplay

Main Campaign

Empty Barrel's uses are versatile. Having offensive and defensive applications allow it to damage or kill cluttered enemies, be placed ahead of time to serve as a stalling tool (one good strategy is placing it ahead of the barricade to protect your melee units from upcoming enemies to make sure they can keep damaging the barricade uninterrupted) or defensive wall to help allies that are low on health or have slow reloads, and eliminate stragglers or running enemies from approaching the bus. Thanks to its combination of very low rage cost and short preparation time, Empty Barrel can be used very frequently and easily.

Sadly, Empty Barrel becomes quite inefficient in the later portion of the game, as enemies have increasingly higher health and damage. It becomes superseded by other support items, namely Red Barrel, which compensates for its higher rage cost with greater health and offensive capabilities. The only applications it has in end-game is to be a cheap option for dealing with Charged Zombies, and to finish off certain dangerous threats, like Insectoids that just landed near a ranged unit.

Skirmish

Like all rage abilities, it is unavailable in League. However, it can appear through Specops' special ability. For players, the Empty Barrel is one of the most underwhelming items that Specops can summon after being killed. The damage it can cause from being dropped is typically inconsequential should it actually manage to land on someone. It cannot be used as an obstacle since enemy player units will move past them. Although it can stop zombies like in the main game, this rarely happens given the fast pace nature of Skirmish matches.

Trivia

• Before update 2.7.0, Empty Barrel used to be an initially available unit, just like Redneck. It would be unlocked after starting Mission 2.
  • It still technically is as it's impossible to fail the first mission of the game, and upon entering Mission 2, players will be instructed to deploy Empty Barrel.
• According to its description, the Empty Barrel was stolen from a warehouse. Mission 2 takes place at a location called Liberty Warehouse, which could be the warehouse in question. Additionally, several Red Barrels appear in this mission as well, which imply they, too, are also recovered from various sources before being put to use.