Game Summaries for Players: Team Deathmatch

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

This is the fundamental team vs. team game. Kill them more times than they kill you.We always run at least one of these to let players get into the zone of playing and to try out the equipment before we throw more complicated games and challenges at them. Although deathmatches have simple rules (Don’t die as much as your opponents!) there’s nothing simple about the skills required to play well.

Strategy and Tactics:
Winning deathmatches really does require that you hone all of the basic skills for play: accuracy, speed, stealth, and coordinated movement.
Try to find ways to pin and flank your opponents: have two or three people lay down suppressive fire (each player shouldn’t need to fire more than once every two seconds or so) while another one or two move out and around to the side of your target.

Game Summaries for Players: Sniper

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

One-quarter of the players use longer guns and are sent out on bolt-action mode and given time to hide. The rest of the players become hunters with full auto and only 1 hit point but unlimited respawns. The hunters need to flush out the snipers before too many of the hunters are eliminated. At times this game can be slow because some snipers will hole up and hide. Successful snipers will hunt out the hunters and look for opportunities to pick them off when it’s hard for the hunters to retaliate.

Strategy and Tactics:

It can not be overstated: the snipers will almost certainly win or lose this game within the first 5 minutes. How? Preparation. Snipers MUST work as a team to be successful in this game. Hide yourselves near each other but so that you have at least a 90° difference in your attack angles to the trail. Do not attack players as they come down the trail. Shoot people in the back as the group passes or pick them off from a long distance when you’re way off on the side. The moment the group sees you they’ll start firing, so you have to do everything you can to kill the hunters but not be seen.
Snipers who successfully kill a few players and then have a moment where the hunters retreat and regroup would be very wise to MOVE. Find a new ambush point or, even better, find alternate ambush points while you are getting set up before the hunters get to start looking for you. As soon as you’ve shot someone they’ll have a general idea where you are, so don’t be there when they come back.
Hunters should ALWAYS walk in groups of at least 3-4 players. Do NOT let more than 2 people walk in a single line. Most of your hunters should be off the path so that you don’t have a sniper hitting your whole squad with a single shot. Once the firing starts make sure you communicate the snipers’ positions to the other members of your team or they might just start spraying where they think you’re shooting, which only tells the sniper where to shoot next.

Game Summaries for Players: The Whiffle Ball Game

Posted on January 1, 2009 by admin

Pairs of balls (one marked “1” and one marked “2” in each pair) are scattered around the field under orange cones, in baskets, etc. Each team is trying to collect either all the 1s or all the 2s before the other team gets their own balls. Often we will play several rounds of this, with the winner being the team that wins two out of three rounds. It’s an insanely fast-paced game that can turn around dramatically if one team suddenly discovers the location of their balls all at once or at a critical time.

Strategy and Tactics:

Most teams waste a lot of time as players search the same areas over and over. Players will discover cones they hadn’t seen before only to find that their ball for that cone was already retrieved. You MUST make sure your team communicates so that you can focus as much attention as possible away from areas that don’t contain any more balls for your team.
Keep your eyes up! The cones you’re looking for are on the ground, but if you don’t pick your eyes up more than half of the time you’ll get shot by your opponent who is looking in the same area. While the goal of the game is to discover the cones you won’t be able to look if you’re dead. Move slowly and move safely first, look for the cones second.

Game Summaries for Players: Domination / Zone Control

Posted on January 1, 2009 by admin

Domination is won by flipping control points over to your team's color. At the end of the game the team with the most points wins.

Domination is one of the best games out there and it’s easy for new players to be good at it.

King of the hill by any other name… Domination and Zone Control games are challenging encounters because your team needs to be able to instantly change from being on the attack to being on the defensive and setting up a secure perimeter. Instead of scoring by the number of times your team needs to be respawned, this game is won by either a) controlling the majority of control points on the battlefield at the end of the game (Domination) or b) accumulating a certain amount of time within the zone (Zone Control). Most teams have no problem taking the critical point. Preventing the opponents from returning the favor and maintaining an aggressive defense is the tough part.

Strategy and Tactics:

For Domination and multi-zone control games start by splitting your team into small fire teams which can be assigned to specific targets. Remember: you don’t need to control all of the targets, just the majority. If a fire team manages to wipe out all opposition at one point they might be able to pull double duty and cover or support a nearby target in a pinch, but only for a short time before their own point comes under attack again.
When attacking a hill or control point there are two methods. First, you can try to rush the point. If the point is well-defended this may be your only option. Make sure that your attackers are spread out so they can’t all be shot at once. Second, you can send in snipers to move in very slowly and then take out the defenders. This takes a long time, though, and it is almost impossible to remain concealed for too long when you’re shooting at the opponents. You’ll probably want to combine them and use a sniper to get in a few quick hits and then have the rest of the fire team swarm the defenders.
Particularly in Domination games it is important for fire teams to communicate with each other. If one fire team is holding a control point decisively but a friendly fire team across the battlefield is consistently getting wiped out then it might be a good idea to loan the ailing fire team a member.
Domination is one of the few times that you may find yourself choosing to attack a well-defended arm all by yourself. Mike wrote a few tips in case you decide to do the crazy thing and attack against superior numbers.