Nerf Wars - Battle Guide
NERF LASER GAMES
Capture the Flag
Playing Capture the Flag Laser Tag is probably the most commonly played alternative game to regular laser tag. It’s probably one of the most common games to play when considering shooting – you’ll often find it in paintball and airsoft, as well as in online video games.
The premise of CTF is pretty simple – each team has a base that has a flag. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a flag, but it has to be something that the opposition team need to try and collect.
Whilst protecting your own base, you need to try and get your opponents flag and return it to your base – without getting killed. If you get shot, that’s it – you’re out.>
It may seem extremely simple, but it’s definitely much more fun than it sounds. It’s best if you can have a minimum of 4 people when playing capture the flag, but usually it gets better the more people that are playing. If you want to play it properly though, you’ll need to go to a park or a big environment and spread out.
Convoy
Another cool game to play laser tag with in Convoy. It’s very simple, but it’s a great game to play if you have a group of 6 people or more. Split the 6 people into three teams of 2, or however many you need to play.
Essentially, you have two people who need to get from a predetermined starting line to a finish line. In between the ‘Convoy’, the other two teams will be ‘ambushers’. They need to stop to convoy from getting from the starting line to the finish line.
The game is over if any member of the Convoy makes it to the destination without getting shot – they can also win by shooting all the ambushers, but this is hard because there’s twice as many ambushers to shoot them. The ambushers win when all of the Convoy is eliminated.
You can also play this game with a time limit, otherwise you might be waiting ages for the Convoy to get to their destination.
Rabbit Hunter
This is one of my favorite laser tag games to play with your friends. You need at least three people to play Rabbit Hunter, but it’s much more fun if you have more people.
Essentially, you have one person who is the rabbit, and the rest of the team are the hunters. You start a timer, and the rabbit has to see how long they can evade the rest of the players without getting caught. If they want to fight back they can – but the rabbit unlikely has much of a chance against a pack of hunters.
This can be a super fun game to play with the kids, especially if you want a bit of a break. You can leave the rabbit to run for ages and only start hunting when you’re ready!
Free for all
Most people think that laser tag is generally based on teams. And if you go to a laser tag area, then you’d be right.
But if you’re playing laser tag at home, you get the choice of playing a free for all. That means that if you have four people, you can have a 1 v 1 v 1 v 1. It doesn’t always necessarily need to be a team game.
This is a good idea if you have young children, because it can help prevent them feeling like they are getting teamed up on. Although much of the basis of laser tag and other shooting sports are around it being a team game, sometimes it can be fun to split up.
Last Life
Last life is a good game to play if you want to spice things up a little. If you want to have an extended game of laser tag, then it makes sense to increase the amount of lives that you have.
Essentially, Last Life increases the amount of lives that you have. This means that even if you get tagged, then you can continue to play – but when you’re tagged once, you cannot continue to shoot and you have to go back to the starting point.
Another good way of playing last life is to limit the amounts of shots you’re allowed to fire. You can even do ‘One in the Chamber’ – meaning you only get one bullet to kill your enemy. If you miss, you have to run back to the starting point to get your ammo!
NERF DART GAMES
FREE FOR ALL
Free for all allows all players to take up a position at the start of the game. The objective is to be the last person standing. There are no teams in this game and you are on your own for defense. If you are tagged you must make your way to the respwan point at which point you can re-enter the game. You are only given 1 re-spawn in each game.
Free for all is a good option for warm up games as there are no teams and games are fast paced with no where to hide.
TEAM DEATHMATCH
This is a game of elimination. Each player is given three hits before they find themselves out of the game. After each hit you must slowly count out loud to 15 before you are allowed to re-enter. Upon your return you must yell, “Clear!” to announce that you are back in play and once again a target.
While you are counting yourself back in, you may walk around and collect ammo. However, you must make sure that you are out of the way of active players and that when you clear in you must do so out of firing range and behind your team’s lines. You may not respawn behind enemy lines or close enough to shoot them right after you clear back in.
There are many variations on this basic game. It simply depends on how you divide up the groups of players.
DEFEND THE CORE
This NERF variation is played with two teams defending two containers. You want to ensure that your containers are large enough to hold a large quantity of darts/balls/missiles, but you also want to make sure they are small enough to be easily defended.
To win this match, set the timer for half an hour and see which team can put the most darts into the other team’s receptacle. Of course, you will be trying to simultaneously drop ammo into the other team’s bucket while still defending your own core.
Also, pay attention to the distance between cores. To keep the game fair, you don’t want it to be possible for players to shoot from one core into another without having to leave their defensive positions. In addition, ammo must be shot from your NERF weapon into the cores. Dumping collected ammo from your pockets or other sources is not allowed.
HUMANS VS. ZOMBIES
This may be one of the most popular NERF variations out there. The basic premise of the game is simple, but the game is no less fun for it.
Humans are armed with NERF blasters and sock whips while zombies are unarmed. One or more people may start as zombies, however, that number may quickly grow as humans who are touched by zombies become zombies themselves. Thankfully, humans may eliminate zombies momentarily from the match by tagging them. This allows the humans to complete their missions in order to win the game.
If all the zombies are tagged out, the humans win. If all the humans become zombies, naturally, the zombies win.
CIVIL WAR
During a civil war, single shot blasters are required. Players are divided into two teams at which point they will line up “Red Rover style” into single lines facing each other. Starting with one team, players will go down the line taking one shot at a player from the other team. Once everyone has taken their shots, the line will advance one step forward and then the next team will take their turn.
Points will be allotted as follows:
- · A tag in the arm or the leg will result in the loss of the limb. If you lose both arms you will not be able to shoot. When you lose both legs you will have to fight from your knees.
- · Shots to the torso are considered an elimination.
- The team that eliminates the entire opposing team wins.
PRESIDENT / ASSASSIN
Here, you’re going to have to pretend that you’re protecting the president. Whichever team is not designated as the assassins must select a player to be the presidential target. Once the target is picked, they are offered a single shot blaster to carry. They may have no other weaponry. The rest of the team must be their de facto guards.
Assassins will try to tag out the target and win. However, the guards can take hits for the target and sacrifice themselves for the good of the team. If they are able to protect the target for the designated period of time or if the target is able to reach a predetermined area, then the target is considered to have “escaped” and the good guys will win.
HOSTAGE
This rescue mission will take some tactical manoeuvring. During each round, the teams designate a “hostage” for the other team to place at one side of the center court sitting on the ground with a blaster at their feet. The hostage is unable to move until one of their teammates taps them at which point they may pick up their blaster to defend themselves. If they are tagged they must return to the center court and place the blaster back on the ground. The first hostage successfully makes it back to base first wins.
The goal of the game is to rescue your team’s hostage and bring them back to base. The first one to do this wins.
SIEGE
This battle mode is a variant on Attack and Defend. The objective of this game is to capture a flag and return it to the attackers’ spawn point in the shortest time possible. Whichever team is able to recover it the fastest wins.
During this game, defenders get four hits and must count to 15 after each hit until they are eliminated (4-15 rules). However, you are given infinite respawns with a five second count-in.
CAPTURE THE FLAG
A NERFed-up twist on classic, Capture the Flag is exactly what you would expect. Each team has a flag that they must defend as they charge the other team’s territory in an attempt to capture the opposing team’s flag.
To defend your banner, you may shoot oncoming attackers who will then be forced to return to home base to respawn. The first team to capture the opposing team’s flag, of course, wins.
