[Fubarius]

So last weekend I attended one of the local scenario/big games (there's a long drawn out discussion of the difference between the two somewhere, but yeah, 300+ people, big *** field, missions and objective type stuff, pure fun).

I noticed something. It sure seems like more players are willing to do a retreat than they used to.

A group of us would be working down a trail, see a few opponents in a bunker/log pile, shoot at them, and they'd run away. Usually we'd end up saying,
"Um, did we get them?"
"Don't know, I don't think I hit any."
"Me neither..."

Admittedly these games are a bit more "advanced" than a usual walk-on day so people bring out the fast guns and aren't afraid to use them to their fullest. My old Viking can be rather fear inducing when I really work the trigger, but still, not the usual gung-ho attitude I'm used to encountering at these games. Used to be everyone would rather go out in a blaze of glory as the lone defender before even thinking of retreating.

Of course, the alternative is that everyone is suddenly being very lazy about signalling that they're out.

So the question of the day, how willing are you do do a strategic withdrawal, advance to the rear, or run the heck away when playing on a large format field? (non-speedball of course, that's a different discussion)

Or alternately, do you make sure to signal clearly to the person shooting at you that you've been eliminated, or do you just run off the field? (again, non-speedball, those fields it's not much of a big deal since the sideline is right there)

[Pyrate Jim]

There's a difference between strategy and tactics.

Tactics are when two groups meet each other and go out in that blaze of glory right down to the last defender.

Strategy is finding the opfor and drawing them back into a waiting ambush.

And personally, when I'm hit I make sure people know it. If I don't call myself out plainly and loudly after the first one I know there will be 30 more from the same angle in just a few seconds.

[Fubarius]

Originally Posted by Pyrate Jim

There's a difference between strategy and tactics.

Tactics are when two groups meet each other and go out in that blaze of glory right down to the last defender.

Strategy is finding the opfor and drawing them back into a waiting ambush.

I wish that was happening, wasn't ambushed once. I respect a good ambush, something I can't quite manage the patience to pull off regularly, so when someone else can do it kudos to them. This time it was more like a few players we could hardly make out would bolt as soon as we sent a few their way, but they were far enough back we couldn't tell if we had run into them again when we reached the next firefight. Happened in different parts of the field, at different times, with seemingly different players.

And personally, when I'm hit I make sure people know it. If I don't call myself out plainly and loudly after the first one I know there will be 30 more from the same angle in just a few seconds.

Oh I'm totally the same way. Usually throw a "nice shot!" in as well.

Of course old ref habits creep in as well. When I'd see a player signal out and others players keep shooting (usually they just hadn't noticed yet, there was generally good sportsmanship all around at this game) I'd find myself shouting "Player's hit, let him out!" in the old ref voice.

[byarosh201]

It is all situational. If you know there's absolutely no hope and no mission related pluses to holding that point retreat. But if its a weak point to an objective, or holds a high tactical value. Hold it to the very end and pray reinforcements come before your demise.

[o5pr3y]

I don't play scenarios, as there's none in the SF Bay Area, but when i play woodsball or just wide open haystack recball fields, I have no problem retreating. usually though, it's more of a Feint, so I can either regroup with other players and push back, or so I can flank/counterattack their force.

[Subterfuge]

I hope I don't post too much strategies that can be used against me.

10 years ago [Wayne Dollack's 5th Element Scenario Game]

I hold my position to slow down the other team. The reason I hold my position is because I expect reinforcements. When they arrive, I expect to come back to the same spot after my elimination and the line be held. In one scenario game I almost came close to eliminating a player that would of given my team 100 points. But the snipers that were supposed to be covering me, were eliminated first. [Ok every firefight I was in with snipers on my side, they would be eliminated first. What the heck?] I hold my position, I'm not going back. I start unloading on people, snapshooting, going absolutely postal on the other team. [I wanted that role player] I eliminate 5+ people. Eventually someone bunkers me that I didn't see coming down the trail. I trade shots, but he shot me first. There was this player on the other team calling for help the entire time. When I called myself out and walked away the other player said, "THAT WAS ONLY ONE GUY!!??"

Early in the morning I took a special forces mission. We were supposed to be outnumbered, but we only met resistance at the end of the time we had to hold the airbase. I took a tower initially, and the time ran out. The other guy's on the mission asked if I wanted to leave with them. I told them I was going to slow the other team down a little, "I am going to hide in this tower until I am surrounded and take out as many people as I can." Some guys that knew me as the pointman at night decided to stay with me on the ground. I waited for a while and told the guy's on the ground to retreat back a bit. Let them take the bunkers underneath me and I will eliminate them. The plan would of worked if the other team didn't cheat. I made double sure I shot the medic first and the guy with the law rocket in the face. Yet another guy I just shotup because I thought the medic would be dead. I hear a thump on the back of my tower and the ref calls me out. I start to argue that I know I shot the law rocket dude in the face and killed the medic, but the ref said he didn't see it. The other guy's [on my team] on the ground continued on, but they only lasted as long as it took me to walk to the treeline.

It was the final battle of the day. I run to the frontlines like I usually do when there are no missions. Dangit, it was too long ago. Way too long ago. I forget all the details but somehow I ended up DEEP behind enemy lines accidentally with a few other mil-sim players. I was wearing a t-shirt/pbpants that said SWAT on the back, while they had full camo BDU's. We get down in the grass and I see a bunch of the other team completely out of range. Yeah we can hit them with the paint, but it is not going to break. I tell these guys to hold their fire until they get closer. But these guy's are starting to panic, because a ****load of the other team starts pouring in all around us. I tell them, it is going to get REALLY hairy and they need to get down behind this solid log I found so their paint can't hit them through the grass. "We are snipers." they said. I tried to argue my point even more, but they wouldn't listen to me. They decided these guy's that were 175 feet away were in range of the scenario crap paint and started shooting. [I wanted to get these people within 50 feet before I revealed our location.] They start coming toward us shouting and pointing at us. I don't even shoot, I just watch what's going on. Eventually one of them came within range and I fired a couple of rounds at him. I thought we would be able to hold this position for a while until....we all figured out they were pointing our location out to a tank. The tank rolls in under 50 feet away from the trail we were going to ambush people from [until the "snipers" decided to shoot over the trail revealing our location to everyone.] There were people following the tank. I decide to reveal my own location further down from the snipers to wipe these guy's out of the picture. The turret starts to turn and I duck down behind the log looking underneath. I tell the snipers to get down, but it's too late. They get blasted by the small markers poking out the sides and the turret. The ref calls them all out but me. I am the only one left.......and this is the way I like it. I wait for the turret to turn back toward the trail peering under the log. When it turns, I shoot over the tank into the other team that thinks it can use it for a shield now. They all start running saying there is one person left. The turret turns again, but I duck down. The turret can't do anything because I am covered by the log. I just sit there peering under the log patiently waiting for the turret to turn back. Whenever it turned I would resume snapshooting the other team. This guy compromised my bunker, but I was so hyped on adrenaline I shot him 4 times. The guy starts yelling at me and I say, "Your out, just get out, it's freaking paintballs and I am outnumbered!" The turret starts turning toward me again, but this time my own team's tank comes down the trail and hit's it with it's law rocket. The ref calls the tank out, but my team's tank, doesn't wait around for me, it just drives off out of the treeline into the speedballish pil box field and mows everyone down over there. I am excited about surviving this and call other people on my team really far down the trail to my position. But just as I am completely distracted the same dude I eliminated lights me up with 10 paintballs from the same position he compromised me last time.
Took me a while to get back to where I was eliminated, I wasted all my pods. When I came back though, my team's line had moved up to the edge of the treeline, surrounding the pillbox field and trapping the other team in their spawn. I ran up to the treeline and told a bunch of people to run on 3.
"3, 2,....you are not going to go anywhere sitting down, standup unless you are lying to me. 3, 2, 1, GOGOGOGGO!"
I managed to run and dive next to this church. I cleared it out on my own after all the other dude's running for it were smoked by paint. But just as I surrendered the last dude inside the church. I was shot through one of it's windows. There were advanced frontman tactics that I used that helped me survive where everyone else didn't. There were things that people on my team did completely wrong to me, but I couldn't tell them in time or explain it loud enough in the midst of the hailstorm of paint. That church was initially surrounded by the other team. I tried to wave for them and tell them the church was clear, as I called for a medic. The medic healed me, but I didn't have any paint left. [I surrendered the last guy with nothing] I told them that the church was a good base station to have the medic, and to use the building to move up further. Then left.

There are more stories to tell...that was the only scenario game I have been in. What made it epic was the dude that took me over there. He trained me to be a scout at night. Those night stories in the cavelike darkness were even more incredible. 30on30 10 feet away the paintball guns molded into one big roar like a tornado. That was the most litup I've ever been in my life, but somehow the dude that was training me survived by rolling off the trail. We ambushed many teams at night after that. In fact we annihilated an entire group when we pinned them against the fence in a counter ambush surprise attack. There was this woman screaming bloody murder in the middle of it. All the spotlights lit them up bright as day, they were crawling on top of each other trying to escape the hailstorm, but there was nowhere to go. They were supposed to ambush us, but they didn't expect our team to take down the bait that fast.

[JohnSherman]

If I'm ridiculously outnumbered, I like to break cover and run straight at the other team, gun blazing. Everyone remembers it for the rest of the day.

[loneassassin]

The only time I retreat is if there's absolutely zero chance that I'll survive the inevitable gun battle with multiple opponents. It also depends on the position I'm in -- if it's a defensible position, meaning solid cover with multiple shooting angles out, I'll stay there and hold it. Often, I'll advance beyond such points and keep them in the back of my mind as a place to retreat/regroup. I'm always pushing to take as much real estate as possible. My specialty is in breaking through the line of scrimmage and then going around and hitting them from the side or back. At least that's the goal I usually have when playing woodsball.

But if I'm stuck out there too far past the 50 to retreat to safety, well, I'm going down in a blaze of glory. If I'm going to die, I'm gonna take as many with me as possible before it happens.

I see what you're getting at Fubarius. It's kind of annoying when people retreat before you've even done anything scary, lol.

[2nwyka]

Absolutely no retreat. The moment you retreat is the moment you get hit. My teammates don't see this...
Once I had a rather large woodsball game (20v20) and I took a squad of five up the left flank. They were almost all newbies, with one player who had played a few times before. I ran almost to half field, wondering if anyone had followed me. They had all run about a quarter of the way up the field before stopping. I spent precious minutes coaxing them to move up until finally they were at least 40 feet behind me. The enemy was advancing (although I was able to take two down as they moved up) and my team basically scattered, getting picked off. I held position until I was overrun and took a hopper hit while snap-shooting. Six people in front of me stood covered in yellow and pink paint, my final stand.

So, I don't retreat. Sometimes I'll fall back and circle around, but I'm always moving somewhere where I can get a better shot and not running from fire.
Noah

[gunslinger84]

Sometimes you have to fallback in order to move forward.

[inferno2inferno]

To reply to the original question of the thread, I find that a strategic withdrawal can be a very useful tactic, the challenge is doing it effectively. If you are patrolling/scouting an area during a big game and you find your team is in a tight spot, a withdrawal can be executed by properly suppressing the enemy with one part of your team while the other part retreats, stops and provides cover for the initial fire team element as they pull back. By continuing this reversed fire and maneuver, you can likely get out of an ambush situation largely unscathed ( also known by some as leapfrog maneuvers). I have been a part of this and witnessed it and seen it succeed with a good, communicating team, and fail in lesser teams. By no means is falling back a bad tactic, it just needs to be executed with care in my opinion.

[loneassassin]

Originally Posted by 2nwyka

Absolutely no retreat. The moment you retreat is the moment you get hit. My teammates don't see this...
Once I had a rather large woodsball game (20v20) and I took a squad of five up the left flank. They were almost all newbies, with one player who had played a few times before. I ran almost to half field, wondering if anyone had followed me. They had all run about a quarter of the way up the field before stopping. I spent precious minutes coaxing them to move up until finally they were at least 40 feet behind me. The enemy was advancing (although I was able to take two down as they moved up) and my team basically scattered, getting picked off. I held position until I was overrun and took a hopper hit while snap-shooting. Six people in front of me stood covered in yellow and pink paint, my final stand.

So, I don't retreat. Sometimes I'll fall back and circle around, but I'm always moving somewhere where I can get a better shot and not running from fire.
Noah

There are times when you can only do so much from the position you're in. Is it better to die when facing 15+ opponents or back up and get a better position? I say if I'm dead, I'm not doing much good for my team. There are cases where even a GOD player cannot handle the onslaught of too many opponents rushing in. That's when I high-tail it out of there and regroup. (Though there have been a few cases where 10 or more people tried to rush my position on a flank and they all walked off the field wearing my paint. )

Originally Posted by gunslinger84

Sometimes you have to fallback in order to move forward.

[mjfraasch]

I thought about it two weekends ago when I was outnumbered 3 to 1 and could see them moving up on me

I said f it though and started yelling bonzai and the top of my lungs and came out rolling on the trigger, two were like 15 feet away and I caught them in the open, then I ducked behind a bunker and was eventually able to get the last guy out 1v1


Sometimes the last ditch charge works


the retreat has its place though, although I hate turning my back to the opposing team so I rarely do it

[Subterfuge]

I don't know if I should say this...but when moving up it is imperative that you be absolutely silent. Otherwise there is not going to be much of a surprise.

I have pushed my team far into the other team's side at night. But I can't tell you how I was able to detect the other team and setup a proper ambush. It would probably be used against me some day if I told you. So at night I am offensive and defensive, but not really retreating. We need the points, why give it up? There is not going to be any funerals in paintball.

One ambush failed miserably. The other team, I don't know how the heck they survived, I think they were cheating. We had them surrounded but no one went out. Anyway I run out of paint and lean up against a tree absolutely still. Three guys on the other team bump into me but don't know I am there because they think I am part of the tree. I try to call them out, but they call my bluff. So I yell out, "I'm GREEN!" All the players from the trail unload on me in the center of these three guys taking them all down with their friendly fire. I wish I could play another 24 hour scenario game. I would like to expand my skills at night a little bit more. Maybe even assassinate a general.

In one special operations mission we destroyed the general's base and held it for 30 minutes. All of my guys in the original mission were eliminated, but I hid inside the darkest corner of the base. The last two on the opposing team that tried to take it back took the tower, but left no one to cover the bottom of it. I went inside behind them and took them out point blank. But as I walked back down the stairs my own team's reinforcements lit me up. I said to hold the base as long as they could, I was the last one in the special operations mission they just eliminated to hold the base. I told them to hold the base until the time ran out and walked away.
The group in our special operations mission became cocky. We were thinking of taking out the general in his alternate base because his primary one was too easy. They weren't able to coordinate the split in time before we were attacked. It would of helped if our captain decided to make these plans inside the base, instead of out in the open field.

[ElJefe13]

Originally Posted by gunslinger84

Sometimes you have to fallback in order to move forward.

This. If I can't get anyone out from my current position, I'm gone. I think the longest I've stayed in one spot ever is probably two minutes.

[Ledeo]

The only time I have fallen back is when we were told to regroup back at this one town. I don't see the point of running. Might as well take down a few of the buggers eh? Even if they are flanking I normally find running a waste of time and more often then not a shot to the back. Oh and if they ambush us, If we are getting torn apart in that ambush fall back and regroup otherwise. Never say die