Article By: OnTarget Airsoft Airsoft Electric Guns. Tested, Chronographed, Guaranteed!

A successful and entertaining airsoft skirmish requires pre-planning. The first step in pre-planning an airsoft skirmish involves determining what type of airsoft skirmish you want to engage in. Let’s focus on two popular types of airsoft skirmishes, Head-to-Head and Objective oriented games. Head-to-head involves two or more teams trying to eliminate one another. Objective style is a "capture the flag" airsoft engagement requiring your team to follow through with a mission.

Head-to-Head In head-to-head airsoft skirmishes you usually have 2 teams of opposing forces. Each team will attempt to eliminate the other in various airsoft skirmish scenarios. Some examples of head-to-head are:

1. Patrol based - One team has to move through an area looking for the opposing team. This is a search and destroy mission which involves ambush, tracking and unit movement skills. The area can be designated as enemy territory with booby traps and ambush sites opposing forces will encounter along the way. Patrol based usually requires a large area of wooded land to be effective. Airsoft MOUT (Military Operation in Urban Terrain) sites have also become popular for patrol based airsoft skirmishes. The difference here is the patrol and fighting occurs in mock towns and villages.
2. Front Line Airsoft Skirmishes - This is true head-to-head airsoft combat. Usually two teams control equal parts of the playing field. The goal of this airsoft skirmish is a full frontal assault where both teams try to eliminate the other.

Objective Style

In Objective style airsoft skirmishes you usually have an objective to complete, while the other team tries to prevent your mission accomplishment. These are very goal oriented airsoft skirmishes, and during airsoft competitions are usually timed or scored events. Some examples of Objective style are:

1. Hostage rescue - usually an indoor Close Quarters Battle (CQB) style airsoft skirmish. This involves one team trying to find and safely rescue a hostage, while the opposing teams tries to keep their hostage or even eliminate the hostage if the airsoft skirmish doesn’t go their way.
2. Capture the flag - a classic objective style airsoft skirmish. One team defends their base, while the other team tries to capture it. This is probably the most popular style of airsoft skirmish today.
3. Downed pilot or Treasure hunt - a pilot or valuable object is placed at a random spot on the airsoft skirmish field. Opposing teams try to find and secure the target. This a fun variation of capture the flag, as both teams are on the hunt and random airsoft skirmishes are bound to pop up as they encounter each other on the hunt.

Scenarios - In order to add realism to any airsoft skirmish you should plan it around a theme or scenario. For example, an alien invasion airsoft skirmish.  A certain area of the field or object is considered the alien's ship, and the "humans" need to capture and destroy the ship, while the "aliens" objective is to eliminate humans, or capture their capital building on the opposite side of the field.

Some airsoft skirmishes are recreations of certain battle scenes from wars past (world war II, etc). Battle recreations require research about the event to ensure as much realism as possible. You can get so into recreations that teams may require use of authentic weapons and uniforms from that period. Another idea is to recreate a scene from a movie.  Hostage rescue or capturing a bridge are movie scenes that translate well into airsoft skirmishes.  The bottom line is to be creative in planning your airsoft skirmish scenario.  The more realistic, the more engaging and challenging it will be for the players.

Props - Another element to plan is the use of battlefield props. Certain items are often labeled as props.  For example, there can be boxes marked as explosives, and to capture these boxes means to be able to use them to eliminate opponents, or their base, or something else.  Some of these props may be assigned a point value, and if one team captures them and brings them back to their own home base, they are awarded points.  Airsoft skirmish such as this work on a "win by attrition" system, wherein the team needs to reach a certain objective but needs a specific number of points as well.

If you're someone planning airsoft skirmishes for your team or a tournament, you can see that proper planning takes weeks, maybe even months to develop and execute the perfect airsoft skirmish.  It pays to get creative, but not too complicated, of course.  However, if you put some thought into it and plan it right, it will be well worth the effort when it comes time for game day or your tournament, as the players get caught up in the fun and excitement of the perfect airsoft skirmish.