Battlefield Strategies #1
Welcome to Ohio Adventures Battlefield Strategies segment. As part of 2017 we will be providing you some insight on some of the missions we run on our outdoor course. We want to show you some of the strategies we’ve seen that work to achieve victory on the battlefield. So to kick things off we’ve chosen a battlefield favorite: Team Death-match.
Mission: Team Death-match
Objective: Eliminate the opponent forces more time than they eliminate you.
Time limit: 10 minutes
Equipment load-out: Each team will begin with at least one fully automatic tagger and one semi automatic tagger for a bare bones minimum of 2 vs 2 (though we more regularly see numbers like 6 on 6 or more).
Main strategies: Communication, Cover, Flank
Team Death-match (TDM) is a laser tag standard with a simple objective and even simpler rules.With only ten minutes on the clock this can very easily be the most challenging mission players face if they don’t stick to their basics. Those basics being our triple threat of TDM: Communication, Cover and Flanking. We will discuss each and how they can maximize your teams effectiveness in TDM.
Communication: Imagine that you are on point preparing to enter and clear a building on the laser tag course by yourself. Your team mates see three enemy players enter the building before you and from an angle you cannot. Instead of calling that out to you they let you walk in and get eliminated. What could have stopped that from happening? Using walkie talkies or hand and arm signals or even just shouting out what they observe. As silly and as simple as it seems more times than not this happens on the laser tag course. Communication is key to almost every tactical maneuver you and your team will conduct on the field. More so even than the number of players you posses or the damage output of your tagger. Before the mission begins come up with some simple hand and arm signals that you and your team can use to silently communicate over long distances. Whatever the case letting your team know what you see and what your current status is is important for success.
Cover: So often players get so focused on pulling the trigger that they forget Murphy’s law of combat: If the enemy is in range, so are you. Meaning that if your out in the open firing away at your opponent, it probably won’t be long before you’re the new favorite target from their camp. Instead of stopping and firing in the open, use a building or a barrel to provide some cover before moving to your next position. Also never forget that if your opponent has a bead on you and you’re taking hits to duck back or down and move over a foot or change positions. This makes your opponent pick a new sight picture and could save you a few seconds before taking hits again. Communicate your current situation to your team and they might be able to provide you some mobile cover or even draw the enemies fire.
Flanking: TDM is all about racking up the re spawn points for the enemy. The most effective teams utilize a simple battle drill called flanking. We hear people calling out to flank a lot but don’t see much action, the wrong actions or worse deer in the headlights looks. Flanking allows your team to score points from a relatively safe position while destroying your opponents with a maneuver element. Given the equipment load-out for this session we have one fully automatic tagger and one semi automatic tagger. A lot of times people want the fully automatic tagger because, well it sounds cooler! The fully automatic tagger has a heavy responsibility though. As the fully automatic tagger player you will provide a base of fire/ cover fire for the flanking element. From a position of cover the fully automatic player will use short bursts to pin the enemy down while allowing the semi automatic player a chance to break from cover. As the semi automatic player you must be quick and not get bogged down. Utilize the cover fire your team mate is providing and take the most concealed or least enemy protected route to move to a right angle of the enemy. Once the semi automatic player gets to the right angle they can begin firing from their position or even closing the distance and overwhelming the enemy. See our diagram for more details.
