Unconventional Tactics

Topics about water war tactics, water war planning, and past water war stories.
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DX
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Unconventional Tactics

Post by DX » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:34 pm

...or you could look at it as conventional tactics with unconventional uses! Here are 7 useful tricks that your enemy probably will not expect.

False Gun Switcheroo: [Works only once]
Love the name? :laugh: This is best used when defending. Before the battle starts, you should gather up some powerful guns and hide them at the position you wish to defend. You should then arm your team with some mid-caliber or weak weapons, under the pretext that you're going light this time. The enemy will therefore expect light arms tactics and maybe will taunt your team for using such weak stuff.

Early in the battle, head to your defensive position. Get the attention of the enemy there. Chances are, they will be arrogant and make a frontal assault due to your small guns. Let them get close, within 50ft. Suddenly pick up the hidden heavy guns and open fire. That should shock the crud out of them and throw them into full retreat if you execute the counter-attack swiftly.

The key is to drop your false gun, pick up your real primary, and fire it as quickly as possible, in one motion, and all in unison. For maximum shock value, have a loaded water balloon launcher included in those hidden guns! :goofy:

False Battle Line: [Works many times]
This tactic is best used on defense. Say you are falling back, under lax pursuit. Come to a position such as a wall surrounded by bushes. You should have a few guys set up behind the wall, while the rest of the team hides off to the side. When the enemy approaches, the guys behind the wall should make it seem like your whole team is there, by throwing lots of water balloons, holding up different guns with just their hands visible, anything. If you do it right, the enemy, no matter how experienced, will attack the wall. That's when the rest of your team leaps out from the side bushes, hits their flank, and hits it hard.

The keys here are to make the deception convincing, and to be sure that the hidden team members will not be seen or heard.

Sprinters' Ambush: [works many times]
This tactic can be so totally devestating that I don't know why I am typing it here. In less than a second, you can eliminate a deficit in score or take a significant lead. Anyway, this is neither an offensive nor defensive tactic. This is a neutral tactic, and as I said before, can be devestating anywhere at any time. This tactic also is great for taking the initiative back and completely crushing enemy momentum.

You use this when you notice that some enemies sprint after you when you retreat and become separated from the rest of their team. Here's that you have to do. You plan a retreat on purpose. One guy with a good gun hides in the best ambush place you can possibly find. He MUST not be seen or heard there at all costs. This must also be out of sight distance of the enemy at the time. The rest of your team engages the enemy and retreats as planned, running past your ambusher. The sprinters come through like they always do, when suddenly BOOM! They won't know what the heck just hit them! That one guy will not only take them out, but take them out without any chance of, or time for, retaliation. With the sprinting enemies killed, that guy now runs away to rejoin your team.

The key here is to time the ambush shot exactly to when the enemy[ies] rush by. There rarely are more than 3 enemies in this situation, so the ambusher should easily kill them all. You want your best veteran and your best gun in this tactic.

A Light in the Dark: [works only once]
This is for a night battle. One person holds a large flashlight and turns it on, giving away their position. The rest of your team hides nearby. The enemy will go for the guy with the light, and he should now run away. They will give chase, and when they run past you, you jump up and nail their flank.

They key here is to convince the enemy to go for it. If you suspect that the enemy won't fall for this, you should have a scout or possibly two accompany the guy with the light. This gives credibility as a scouting mission to find the enemy, and they will be more likely to draw an attack.
Beware, there are some nasty counter-attacks to this, so make sure your enemy does not read this forum! Image

Sudden Double Envelopment: [Works many times]
This is primarily for attacking a fortified position, but can be applied against any defensive position. Form up for a frontal assault. Your line charges, sprinting as fast as you can straight at the enemy fort. The guys at the end of your line should break away without warning and turn for the enemy left and right flanks. When well-executed, your enemy should be forced to hastily abandon that position and run. When poorly-executed, they may shift to counter one or both of the flankers.

The key here is to have the guys at the end break off so suddenly and get to the enemy flanks so switfly that the enemy cannot respond in time to counter it and must therefore flee.

False Charge: [works many times, best the first time]
This is very effective in taking back the initiative, swinging momentum in your favor, or halting an enemy pursuit. Also works best at night or in a densely forested area where visibility is severely reduced.

You're on the run, you're being pursued. However, it will take the enemy a few minutes to catch up. You should hide men left and right of your current position, leaving one or two standing visible in the path/clearing. They should retreat slowly, luring the enemy in. It does not matter if they notice the potential ambushers. The commander should out of the blue yell "CHARGE!" at the top of his/her voice and everyone should lurch forward by a good ten steps. Stomp as loudly as possible. If it is dark or a heavily vegetated area, the enemy will turn and run.

Now you have two options, you can either do the real charge, or you can halt and run the opposite way. Going the opposite way will give you a lot of breathing room, since when the enemy realizes it is false, they will be timidly cautious upon passing through the former position.

The key here is to convince the enemy that you're about to sprint after them, and that you mean business. Get them on their feet, and then decide what you want to do from there.

Commander Roulette: [Works only once]
This has no purpose other than messing with the enemies' heads. Do this right in the middle of an engagement. You should practice this before the battle, because it is very complex and confusing. Designate an order of people who will fake being the commander and what actions you will really take. Practice this until you get it to go smoothly.

What you do for real is to have a non-commander start yelling out commands. The team starts following those commands. Then the next person starts giving orders, and the next. Your teammates should argue, half attack-half retreat, refuse to do either, basically go into organized chaos. The enemy should be standing there in "wtf mode." When they are thoroughly amused and confused, someone gives a discreet signal. The "conflicting commanders" suddenly stop arguing about orders, everyone screams in unison, and launches an all-out assault, all in one motion. This should catch the enemy way off guard and send them reeling backwards.

The key here is to have a well rehearsed plan. This requires a lot of team cohesion and thinking in unison. Your organized chaos should be top-notch, and everyone should know the signal and how to respond to it ASAP. The enemy may take it too well and attack, so you should have the signal made before this happens. This is a weird tactic and might not work against certain enemies.

There you go. 7 tactics that you can use to win or have fun with.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:00 am

Hmmm........
Unconventional indeed!

Although most of these are simply variations of standard ambushes and other tactics, though adapted to suit unconventional situations, this is a great compilation. I'll take your word for it that the most creative, "Commander Roulette" and "Sprinters' Ambush," are truly effective. They certainly are quite interesting.

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Spinner
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Post by Spinner » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:12 am

Nice article! I do enjoy articles on tactics and strategy, such as these ones. Keep it up!
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Post by joannaardway » Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:10 pm

These sound very effective - I just hope I could try some of the ones I haven't used before.

I've used a variant of some of these at one point, so I know they're effective. My favourite is detailed below - it seems a bit like a mix of "false gun switcheroo" and "false battle line"

The general trick was to have two or three people run behind a wall (shouting "get ready back there" as they did so), and they then picked up a weapon stored behind it.

They then dual wielded the soakers (firing over the wall) to give the impression that there were about 5 to 7 people back there, making the enemy retreat to gather extra forces to attack the location.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:47 pm

I haven't been involved in any big wars where everybody is so serious that they care about guns, tactics, etc. But I'll keep these tricks up my sleeve just in case ;) .

I don't think anybody would fall for "A Light in the Dark," even if they were novices.

Why did you say that "Commander Roulette" works only once? I know that I'm only theorizing, while you have experience here, but can't you just have constant chaos with several actual commands? That might be effective.

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Spinner
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Post by Spinner » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:37 pm

Commander Roulette reminds me of some age-old advice I gave to Belisaurius at WWN. It involved staging a team split, only for the "deserters" to secretly re-enter the battlefield. I don't know if he ever used it, but I never heard that he did, although he seemed to think it would be rather realistic. :p
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:46 pm

Hmm, interesting tactic...but I don't quite see how it relates to "Commander Roulette."

Why would any team actually let half its members exit the battlefield and quit playing? I would stage an attack right then and there.

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Post by Spinner » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:56 pm

SilentGuy wrote:Hmm, interesting tactic...but I don't quite see how it relates to "Commander Roulette."

Why would any team actually let half its members exit the battlefield and quit playing? I would stage an attack right then and there.
The similarity exists in creating the illusion of being disorganised.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:01 pm

I don't know the exact details, but it seems as if your tactic would work better when the team is organized and pretends to exit the battlefield with a purpose. I would definitely be on my guard if the enemy was doing anything suspicious.

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:21 pm

That has not been used, although my team has faked people. We actually got Waterbridge to believe that we had 3 people at High Point set up with the Douchenator. Throughout the battle, we shouted fake commands off into the distance and had them convinced that it was an 8v4! They only realized that the 3 extra men did not exist when we told them after the battle had ended. :p
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:25 pm

Hah, that must have been funny indeed :p !

I'm assuming that High Point is some well-fortified location--otherwise, wouldn't they attack it? I would be worried if I thought the enemy had a WBL at some high point :eek: .

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:33 pm

Image

^ High Point is a centrally located, mostly unfortified strategic position that provides sweeping vistas of the center of the East Bank of our park. The RM does not fortify positions, we use ones that have natural advantages.

Image

Since High Point is in the corner of the Heights, it has both a front and side flank elevated above the rest of the West Bank. Here's the side flank:

Image
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:37 pm

Okay, I guess I used poor wording there--I should have used "advantageous" or even "naturally fortified" instead. No, I didn't expect you, or anybody, to actually fortify anything. That's what you read in water fight stories, and it's going over the top.

I didn't expect that you use water balloon launchers in forests--especially in the summer, which is not pictured, and when the leaves would block the line of sight. Forests, no matter how sparse the trees are, doubtfully make optimal range firing. So, how do you fire in the forest? Just wondering...

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:46 pm

Image

^ Line of sight may be a bit diminished, but our park is not as densely vegetated as one would imagine.

We use launchers to shell defensive positions [Waterbridge does fortify, but we have Douchenators, so we don't need to fortify anymore :rolleyes: ]. Trees are a problem, but firing at an angle just over 45 and using less pressure allows for a balloon to have a greater chance of making it. It also depends on the positions. There are more open areas that make for better launching positions.
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Post by Silence » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:49 pm

Okay, I see it now. How many of your shots are "disrupted?"

Wouldn't Waterbridge use Douchenators too, considering they're facing them and that Douchenators are so well documented?

999 posts...so close, Dux!

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