Attack all you like, but if you can’t defend yourself then you’re not going to be attacking effectively as you spend half the day walking back to the respawn. So how do you go about minimising the threat to yourself? Well, there’s concealment and cover, and defensive tactics.

Concealment is your camouflage. Welcome to stipsniper.com, I have loads of info on that of course, but in general you’re probably not going into as much detail as snipers do, whose very existence depends on their ability to disappear. I’ve covered it a little in the Choosing Gear section of this guide; make sure you have appropriate camo to the environment because yes it does make a difference. Being unnoticed for even a second gives you the advantage over your enemy. Eliminate any noise your kit makes and that’s half the battle, isn’t it?

Well, yes you can camouflage yourself and quieten down your kit but that does nothing if you’re walking around in the open and shouting at teammates. What I find with most skirmish players is that they’re generally lazy as hell, and will just mill around in the open and highlight themselves.

OK, so my face here isn’t camouflaged at all but I have made an effort with the forearms. To be fair, it was a cold day anyway and I was far away from the action. But, even in the middle of a game it’s normal for players to stick to paths and easy terrain, and most will stand rather than get face down in the mud. On the whole, Airsofters are easy targets. So to be better, you need to change that approach. In sniper terms, I talk about “active” and “inactive” play.

• Active – When you’re close to the action, potentially close, or just need to be 100% switched on
• Inactive – When you’re more than 100m away from the action, or walking back to spawn, or just generally stood around doing jack shit.

In inactive periods, feel free to do whatever you want. But in active areas, you need to be ready on the weapon and moving carefully, because you never know who is nearby and whether they can see/shoot you. So it’s always safe to assume someone has you in their sights. Move quickly across open areas, and move carefully and quietly through thicker vegetation – you don’t want to create excess noise or branch movement. It’s not always necessary to stay low, because that depends on the terrain behind you and how quickly you need to move. You do always want to be lower than what’s behind you so that the body isn’t silhouetted against the sky (walking on top of hills is never recommended).

On that note, making yourself a smaller target is obviously ideal. Prone is a comfortable firing position, yes, but it also makes you a much smaller target to aim for by presenting only the head and shoulders to the enemy, and at a height they’re not looking for. The human brain is going to scan for human sized things at what it expects is standing height first. A little head on the floor doesn’t register unless you’re really sticking out. I’ve seen some criticism of the prone position because it’s not “dynamic” and doesn’t allow you to quickly get up and run towards/away from the enemy. It’s not mobile or aggressive enough. And that’s fair, but we’re interested in self preservation more than running around and being more obvious because we’re moving. As a sniper, I have days where I get 20 kills to 1 death, which isn’t a lot of kills but clearly a good ratio that means I’m having a positive impact on performance. I’d much rather have that than 100 kills and 100 deaths because I was reckless.

Cover is hard or soft cover that you can hide behind. You’d immediately think that hard cover is preferable because it protects you from incoming fire, but in terms of hiding yourself it can get you spotted quicker. This is usually buildings, walls, containers, cars or similar objects, but can also include the ground itself. Uneven terrain can provide ridges or trenches to hide the player, and include rocks or trees. Elevations and depressions in the ground can result in lots of useful terrain features that are not often considered as positions by the enemy.

The reason is that players looking for you are instantly drawn to “obvious” locations, such as doorways, windows or the edges of hard cover, which they’d expect people to be behind and shooting from. So the eye is drawn firstly to hard cover, so as much as it may be giving you a bit of a shield which is good, it can also make you easier to locate. As a rule, avoid sticking your head over hard cover and look around the sides instead. This is especially important with trenches or similar depressions in the ground, because it will be very obvious – try to use any available vegetation to mask you if you have to look over the top of a trench. Be careful with doors and windows as most of the time there will be a gun pointing at that opening.

Hard cover is very useful for masking movement, especially large or long buildings, which can help you get around site quickly and easily, but always assume that the other end of where you’re going is hostile, because it usually is.

Soft cover is vegetation. Usually. Something that can be shot through, but is still going to hide a lot of you. Bear in mind that BB’s don’t do very well getting through dense vegetation and are easily thrown off course, and soft cover can be just as useful as hard cover. Obviously very useful to hide behind, don’t be afraid to get “into” bushes and other tall vegetation as long as you don’t move it around too much – waving trees will advertise your position.

Open areas are great for quickly moving players around providing they’re away from the action (inactive periods) and this allows you to quickly appear where the enemy don’t expect it but be aware that they’ll be doing the same to you. But what we find too often is that players will get lazy and then start using open areas all day long because it’s easier than crawling knee high through the woods. Open areas of course are going to show you very easily and illuminate you as a target so you’re not going to last long, so try to avoid them. Yet, one snowy day at a site recently I watched on as a guy repeatedly charged a position from respawn by running down the middle of a road at the enemy, getting shot to shit and then becoming increasingly angry at his teammates because they were sitting there (correctly using cover) and not “pushing up” with him. In the open. Seeing him taking bb showers every time and yet still not learning from the previous attempt. Don’t be that guy.

The more alive you are, the more of an impact you can have on the game. Remember that.