Category: Tactics

I was reading through some comments on the blog and I ran across a comment asking if it was possible to have an airsoft war with just a few players.  This got me to thinking about what is possible with just a few players and the lessons I have learned from small battles and backyard skirmishes.  In this post, I want to share some of those moments with you, and hopefully inspire you to take advantage of all the small battles you can have with just a couple of friends over.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

In medieval times, when a knight “threw down the gauntlet” it was a challenge to other knights to fight him for honor and glory. Whoever picked up the gauntlet accepted the challenge, and a one on one battle began.  As ancient as this tradition is, small airsoft battles essentially do the same thing.  They challenge you to fight a single enemy (or two) in combat. They force you to think about that specific player’s airsoft skill, their tactics, and how they think. This personal challenge not only makes you a better player, but it allows you to learn from other players.  Often times the biggest lesson to be learned during a small skirmish is patience and timing.

One battle I was involved in was a simple 2 vs. 2 match in an open field with just a few trees on the edges.  This field was only a few hundred feed wide and a few hundred feet long. The center of the field was filled with waist-high grass. After each team lost a player to shots lobbed across the battlefield, I decided to go into stealth mode and circle for a flank, using just the tiny bit of natural cover available. This battle lasted an entire HOUR!  Yep, that’s right, an HOUR.  Because the enemy player also used stealth and circled the field hunting for me, we each went undetected.  At one point he started patrolling for me and we were less than 5 FEET from each other! In the end, I was able to secure a short burst of BBs on him after he decided to take a more straight forward approach and march through the field looking for me.  Just goes to show that even a small battle, when taken seriously, can teach you a lot about tactics and what you excel at as an airsofter.

Winning One Fight At A Time

Another thing that small battles taught me was focus can make a big difference in how you play. Small battles force you to think before you move or shoot. You have to consider what the result of your actions will be. You learn to fight with precision and focus during the fight at hand, rather than considering what everyone else on your team is up to.

Although one on one battles are not the best way to learn overall battlefield awareness, they do teach you much more about personal awareness. You learn to move with stealth, anticipate enemy moves, and control the in-the-moment-adrenaline. All of these skills make you a better player in large battles and will make you more effective at being a contributing team member.

Defeat Does Not Mean Failure

Nothing in airsoft seems to hurt more than losing to your friends or battle buddies (and believe me, I have lost my fair share of one vs. one games). But, this is a major learning opportunity.

I remember a one vs. one battle that did not go in my favor in any way, shape, or form. I was playing in unfamiliar territory against a stellar airsofter (you can check out Chief’s YouTube channel HERE), and I got pounded…. badly. Every fight seemed to end up with me in a position will zero cover and perfect firing lanes for him. But, I was able to walk away from that battle with a deeper appreciation for terrain knowledge and its effect on a battle. In that way, a loss turned into an amazing “ah-ha” moment for me as an airsofter.

So, the next time you have a few friends over, that the opportunity to do some good airsofting. Even with just a friend of two, you can learn so much about your personal airsofting style and ability, and also get a deeper appreciation for the battle buddies you play with.

Special thanks to Delta Charlie 7 for his comment that sparked the idea for this post. If you have a question about airsoft, or idea for an upcoming post, leave me a comment below!

One of the most satisfying moments in an airsoft game can be found through defending a well thought-out base. As you lay down suppressive fire on the enemy from a well protected position, you get the feeling of a special sort of superiority that can’t be found in any other situation on the field.

Bases can be constructed or found in many ways, and may not even be thought out ahead of time. I have had many instances where the certain configuration of cover and brush has lent itself to becoming an impromptu defensive base of operations during a game. I have taken advantage of these “natural bases” to give my team the edge on the field.

Sometimes my bases have been more planned out, but this doesn’t mean they were complicated facilities. During a game, I established a hasty base with a battle buddy using just some logs and a ghillie poncho that I had in my pack. Although it wasn’t the most tacticool or best laid out bases I have ever used, it accomplished its purpose to protect and camouflage us while we laid down fire on the enemy team.

(Gear Note: I highly recommend picking up a ghillie poncho if you get the chance. They are way faster to get on and off during a game and can be adapted to provide a temporary source of soft cover for camouflage or to hold gear like a net. Although not as stealthy as a full set of ghillie gear, the price and function is perfect for airsoft!)

Back to the primary purpose of this post, how to defend your base effectively. Below are my main tips for keeping your base as secure as possible and general tactics you should use while defending.

Get a Location with Cover

No matter the size of the base, or the amount of time you have to set it up, focus on finding a location that will give you maximum cover. Even if the base is established, move around it and get an idea of the shooting angles it will provide to both your team and the enemy. If possible, try to get a look at it from the enemy’s perspective. Sometime by simply looking at the outside of the base, you can find weak points to avoid or fortify.

While you are in the base, see if you can add cover or adjust the current cover to provide better defense and shooting angles. Tables, logs, and even brush laying around can all provide adequate cover to keep the BBs out of your base.

Set a Perimeter

Once you are in the base, get an idea for how far you can hit enemies, where they will be coming from, and what kind of defensive positions you have outside the base. By “thinking outside the base” you can find better locations that will provide “mini-bases” to hit the enemy from without letting them walk right up to the main base. By having a few team members in forward positions, they can provide better firepower and surprise the enemy. When the enemy begins to overwhelm them, they can fall back to the main base. This was a very common tactic for German machine gun operators in World War 2. They would slowly fall back from multiple firing positions, maintaining strong firepower and making the Allies fight for every foot of ground.

Know When To Leave

Not every fight can be won. Sometimes you have to give some ground to win the overall game. If your position is about to be overrun, use an escape route (preplanned if possible) to deny the enemy any satisfaction from putting you out of the game. Fall back, regroup, and fight the enemy on your own terms.

The good news is, if you need to recapture the base later, you now have significant knowledge about the base and can use that to make the offensive operation easier. 🙂

All in all, base defense will always be a tricky thing to pull off effectively. However, when done correctly, it is one of the best things in airsoft to experience.  Thank you so much to my faithful reader, Delta 1, for giving me the inspiration for this post through a message on the official Airsoft Warrior Facebook page. If any of you have an idea for a post, please feel free to share it with me either through the comments here on the blog or through any of my Airsoft Warrior social media!

Before I dive into this post, I want to define who is a “lone wolf” in airsoft?  For the purpose of this post, a lone wolf is a player that prefers to play alone on the field and is isolated from the normal team structure. Lone wolf players can range from those that picture themselves as the uber, lone sniper type seeking a stealth mission thrill, to those that simply find the time alone on the field to be the best way they play airsoft and have fun.  But if you play as a lone wolf, are you hurting your team and being selfish?  Should you be back with your team fighting on the front lines, rather than poking around in the back woods hoping to find an unsuspecting enemy to sneak up on?  Hopefully this post will answer those questions and provide some solutions to make you a better team player during those lone wolf adventures.

I will start by saying that I am a firm believer in players being committed to the team.  Most of the tactics post around the blog focus on how a player can be better involved with a team and complete team missions. I often try to play closely with my team. I include other players by asking them to join me on a push up the field or help me provide cover fire as the rest of the team captures the objective.  But there are times that I prefer to head out and see what I can accomplish all on my lonesome. Below are a few ways that a lone wolf player can still be involved in a team while playing with the airsoft style they enjoy most.

Tell The Team What You Are Doing

I know half the fun of being a lone warrior on the field is being invisible and no one having a clue where you are or what you are doing; but if you want to be a team player you need to communicate what you are doing to the team.  Communication is what teams thrive on.  By giving your battle buddies a heads up that you will be scouting the enemy lines and outflanking them, you end up with a win-win situation. Knowing that you are going to be sneaking behind enemy lines gives your team a moral boost and also keeps them from viewing you as “that guy” just hanging out by himself.

Communicating your plan to the team also prevents friendly fire.  I can’t count how many times I have taken aim on a player, or become very suspicion of what they were up to, before realizing it was a friendly teammate that had pushed too far up the field without me knowing.  Not only does it hurt them if I am forced to engage them as a target, but it also takes my focus off the real threat.  So please, give your team the respect they deserve and let them know you are going lone wolf if possible.

Have A Mission and Return Plan

Going lone wolf for no reason makes zero tactical sense.  Every move should have a mission, otherwise you don’t contribute anything to the team and can’t judge if you are even good at being a lone wolf airsofter.  The best success I have had as a lone wolf player have been when I took the time to decide what my mission was.  A simple goal such as outflanking the enemy team, finding their leader and taking him down, or even defending a key position that is off the path the rest of the team is taking will give you an edge.  If at all possible, align your plan with the overall mission of the scenario and do your part to make the mission a success.

In addition to having a primary mission, you should also consider how you plan to get back to friendly lines and rejoin the team.  Sometimes this issue sorts itself out when you get overwhelmed by attacking operators and are sent back to respawn, but never go into a battle without having at least some idea of how to make it back in one piece.

These are just a couple of ways that a lone wolf player can still be an important part of the team.  By being in communication with the team, everyone will benefit.  On a closing note, it is important to remember that even the best military snipers don’t hunt alone.  Their trusty spotter is right there to back them up and prove the point that two are better than one.

Sometimes to understand the purpose and usage of advanced tactics, you have to go back to the mentality behind them.  Most tactics, on the very basic level, emphasize either speed or strength to accomplish their purpose and be effective on the battlefield.  In this post, I’ll show you a couple of real in-game scenarios that demonstrate this:

Scenario 1: Rushing The Flag

A common scenario I play at fields is “Domination”.  This scenario requires you to capture an objective and hold it for a period of time.  In one Domination round, my team decided to make a rush at the very beginning of the game and capture the objective before the enemy team could react.  Making a unified attack  and not worrying about securing other positions or protecting out flanks, we were able to overwhelm the enemy operators and win the game almost right off the bat.  By using speed tactics, we were much more effective then if we had taken a strength based approach.

Scenario 2: Flank and Protect

In a large outdoor game I was involved in, a similar “Domination” scenario to the one above was presented.  Some of our team was able to execute a small rush up the field at the beginning of the game; but I quickly realized that the enemy team’s snipers would make any further attempts costly and prone to failure.  I took the time to transition to a flank, set up shop in a protected position, and proceeded to eliminate multiple players approaching on that flank.  By the time the enemy team had gathered enough manpower to stop the slaughter, the game was essentially over, and our team claimed victory!  Strength based tactics, like outflanking and defending, made me more effective and served my team better than if I had continued to rush up the field.

When To Use Speed or Strength in an Airsoft Game?

Now that you have seen how speed verses strength (or vise versa) looks in a gameplay situation, here are some criteria to help you analyze which is better in a given situation.

Speed:

• Aggressive Offensive: Speed tactics, like rushing, are great for a fast pace offense!
• Playing at a Smaller Field: You don’t need to spend a lot of time planning or outflanking, so take advantage of speed!
• More Players with Fast Respawn:  Speed based operations can have high casualties. But, if you can keep the momentum of the operation going even if you lose a lot of team members, go for speed!

Strength:

• Solid Defense:  Take strong tactics, like base of fire and proper use of cover, to enhance defensive operations.
• Need To Hold Key Points:  Use strength based tactics to keep objectives and hold strong points.
• Better Planning:  If you have time to plan, use strength tactics to take advantage of that extra time and increase the tactics level of your op.
• You Have Great Teamwork: Strength tactics work best with numbers and teamwork.  If you have good players that work well together, implement strength tactics to get the most out of your game.

I hope this post has given you a better understanding of how tactics work and when to use them.  If you have any questions or thoughts on speed verses strength, be sure to leave them in the comments!

It’s a well known fact that no one likes to head back to respawn.  Depending on the field, you may have to wait in respawn for several minutes before being able to get back in the game.  Even though it’s just respawn, you should still look at it as an opportunity to implement some tactics.  While I don’t like going to respawn, I’ve always preferred to run back to it instead of walk.  I hope that this post encourages you to do the same.

Here are some reasons to “run to respawn”:

You Decrease Total “Out of Game” Time

I go to airsoft fields to airsoft (as I hope most everyone does).  When I’m playing, I want to get the maximum amount of time in the actual game as I can.  Depending on the field rules, you can get back in a game right after you reach respawn (which adds an even bigger tactical advantage to your team when you get to respawn faster than the enemy team does).  Running to respawn just makes sense.

But you might say “My field doesn’t have that rule.  All I do is stand in respawn for 5 minutes when I get there”.  Running back to respawn still makes sense because the second you get to respawn the countdown begins, meaning you’ll still get back in sooner than if you’d walked.

You’re More Tactical

Some fields require a set number of players to be in respawn before they can leave.  This creates a “wave” of players reentering the game.  If you run back to respawn you can get to that respawn limit faster and get players back in the game.  If your whole team ran back to respawn when they got hit, the enemy team would have almost zero reaction time to move up the field before the “new” players came back into the game!

This can give you a giant tactical advantage over the enemy team and keep the momentum rolling during a game.  Since momentum is vital to winning any airsoft game,  don’t let respawn slow you down.

Everyone Has More Fun

The more time you’re in-game, the better experience you’re going to have.  The more time your team is winning because of tactical players, the better time everyone has.  Look at respawn as less of a “rest time” and more of a time to collect your thoughts and gather the troops.

I hope this post encourages you to “run to respawn”.  Make every second count during a game; and remember to keep the enemy team WALKING to respawn! 😉