Scenario Squad TacticsBy: Jason "Foolybear" Lineberger
Tuesday January 15, 2008
Tournament teams have it easy. Five guys. You play a game on a small field, you start the game with five guys, you either get mauled or you do the mauling, and that's it. You walk off the field as a team, reload as a team, and get ready for the next game. If you play scenarios, a lot of that is thrown out the window.
Let's start with the "all starting together" thing. That doesn't always work out. You can get knocked out of a mission, go to your respawn point, and spend half an hour looking for your teammates. This is assuming they're not doing the same thing because they were knocked out too. It's possible to go to an event, play all day and never find your teammates after the first mission.
It's things like this that frustrate tournament teams who show up to scenario games. Look, you guys are talented. You've got the gear and you've got the individual skills down pat. In a snapshooting contest, hands down you've got game. But scenario play isn't a 5-minute sprint; it's a 24-hour marathon. It works a little differently than you're used to.
Let's start with the basics. I'm assuming that you already know what you're doing as a team. You may have a few tournaments under your belt, you've got some of the basic strategy down, and you know how to communicate and work together. The core skills that serve you well in the arena will serve you well in the woods. Angles, communication, teamwork: The "ACT" core of skills are vital to winning. After that it's just fine-tuning your current team game and making it work in a longer time frame.
You will have to invest in some gear. Don't worry: You don't need a new gun or pack. In fact, wear your brightest speedball stuff in the woods if you want. Other people will follow you around assuming you're either really good, or they're just curious to know what the heck you're thinking. Or buy some BDUs, blend in with the crowd and mess people up who think "Oh, those are just rec guys."
But as a team, you will need radios. FRS radios are inexpensive, easy to get, and the only way you're going to find your teammates if you get taken out of a mission for whatever reason. Hit up your local "Electronics Warehouse" and find a few two-pack radios you like. You're looking for an FRS (Family Radio Service) -compatible radio; 2-mile range is standard. All FRS radios can talk to each other, so you can mix brands if you want. Get a spare and batteries, and learn how to use them. If you're a real tech geek, get some hands-free throat mics. It makes using these things easier.
Right around here you'll understand why a lot of scenario players wear vests or BDUs. There's really no better way to carry a radio other than in a jacket pocket or figure out how to make an armband holster kind of thing. You don't need a vest, but they're useful.
Having a radio solves a lot of your problems. If you've just been respawned at your base, you can radio your team to find out where they are and if they need some help. You can also make radio calls to update the missions on the field. If your team is on "Archie's Bunker" and the big point mission just came up at "Edith's Bunker," you can radio them with the news. Not to mention that if you have one guy who's really good at stealth, a radio is a nice way not to blow his cover.
Don't ask. It was a long day.
Now let's talk about on-field play. Your team can play as normal, back/front/mid. Just understand that unless you're playing the boundary line, the other team can make a huge flank and come up behind you. Your back players can be ambushed by a lone guy in the weeds who spent half an hour crawling to get there. So your roles will be a little more flexible than normal. You might be the front guy at the moment, but you might find yourself giving support so your back guy can get his tail out of the fire.
It's important to have a team captain for several reasons. One player needs to carry mission cards, and it's good to know who's in control of that. Imagine trying to win a game with three guys calling different plays constantly. One guy with the mission objective is the best way to go in long burner games.
You don't have to follow this guy blindly. There's nothing wrong with calling the fire in from your back guy, or telling your front guy he can move up. But the overall team strategy should be called by one guy. Even if he makes a bad decision, you can still recover from it. It's better than three people making separate decisions on what needs to happen. One team captain telling everyone what the plan is works a lot better in the long run.
That being said, you need a chain of command as well. Your team leader can get knocked out, especially if the other team figures out who's calling the shots. If that happens, have a second, and then a third. If nothing else, it gives a direct line of "who gets the mission card?" that you can easily follow. Nothing sucks more than achieving the goal and an eliminated player is holding the card you need.
After that, a lot of your normal roles and gear will apply. On one hand, I wouldn't recommend your back guy carrying his normal 11-pod load. On the other, I've seen times where having a case of paint on a pair of legs comes in handy. Just understand that you're in there for the long haul, not just dashes and sprints. Meaning that your "bunkering run" trade move may open up a small hole for now, but in another 10 minutes will that foothold still be useful? Or are you just trading one guy for one guy in a 50-on-50 fight?
I had the opportunity to watch a semipro team jump into a scenario game. They did rather well, but they approached the game with the "just shoot paint" mentality they took to the arena.
They had grenades and RPGs at their disposal, but they chose not to use them. Instead, they would sacrifice a player to take out an opponent, they'd lane and snapshoot, and in the end it created a stalemate situation more than a winning one. One well-placed RPG could have taken out a building and made it useless for the other team, or one well-thrown grenade could have cleared a bunker with no "trades." But they simply didn't think of it.
The inability to adapt caused them to falter, and ultimately to not win. They should have been able to destroy the other team, but the game they were used to was holding them back. One of the keys to doing well in a scenario game is adapting and using your resources wisely. Not just your physical ones, but also your mental ones. A great combination is your key to scenario success.
|  |
|
|
