The truth is the scout achievements ar the hardest to get. Half of the achievements involve the damn sandman, so how are you supposed to get achievements to GET the damn sandman? Well there are a number of them and the best way to get them is to go into the scout achievement setting and click “Add to HUD”. That way you can watch your progress on the achievements and hopefully be knocking out heavies in no time.

For the record, I firmly believe getting achievements genuinly (i.e. NOT farming) and I have yet to unlock the sandman. The scout is even my second-most played class! Keep it up, eventually you’ll unlock ‘er.

I’ve always respected the melee battle, and with my current interest in Team Fortress 2 why shouldn’t I continue the proud tradition of willingly killing someone with what the developers intended to be a last-ditch weapon? I personally love pipe bombing to the enemy battlements in 2fort and bottlin’ the snipers all night, but what I need to speak out about is the other use of melee weapons: impromptu duels. When running around in Team Fortress, it is generally accepted that if you pull out your melee weapon you have the chance to also pull out your melee weapon and engage in a duel with the opponent. Here are some important rules to follow when a melee duel occurs:

Rule 1: When you engage in a melee duel you MUST use your melee weapon to the death.

This is probably the most broken rule of melee battles. Once you engage in a melee duel, you need to keep your other weapons put away. The most common scenario is that some n00b starts a melee duel, gets near death, and then pulls out his gun to try and stay alive. Put your gun away little n00b! Take your impending doom like a man.

Rule 2: Do not interfere with someone else’s melee duel.

Nothing is more frustrating than almost winning a duel and having your teammate run in and waste your opponent.

Rule 3: If denied a melee duel, give it up.

Often in the heat of battle, I put the well being of my team above my own wants. This means if you try to melee duel someone and they weren’t having it, don’t keep trying to duel them and getting angry when they don’t oblige.

Rule 4: If someone tried to melee duel you and you whip out your melee weapon, the duel is engaged.

When an opponant is trying to engage in a melee duel, the second you pull out your melee weapon the battle has begun and rule #1 is in effect.

Rule 5: Don’t gloat if you win a duel against someone with low health.

He had lower health, you aren’t the Hercules of gaming.

Rule 6: If you have significantly lower health and win a melee duel, gloat like a madman.

Hey man, you had lower health and you still won. You are a stud and should let everyone else know how studly you are.

From a Distance

From across the map the demoman doesn’t pose much of a threat. His biggest method to dispose of you is to try and launch sticked and detonate them in mid-air. If you are fast and nimble enough then you can avoid these no problem, but to get ridda that demoman you are probably better off (and much quicker) to rush up on him or try and plink him with your pistol.

Rubbing Noses

Up close with the demoman is where you will probably get the most work done. When up close with a demoman he will either 1. try to hit you directly with a grenade or 2. shoot a sticky at his feet in an attempt to blow you up first. When he is trying to hit with his grenade your best tactic is to bob and weave. This usually is done when “rocking the scout” regardless, but it’s especially important here. When a demoman shoots stickies at the ground in an attempt to kill you, just try and keep a little distance and hopefully he’ll blow himself up before you (all the while blasting your scattergun in his face, of course). The key to the demo’s feet sticky move is the assumption that you are following him (or attacking him at a VERY close enough proximity) and that you will be in the are of the sticky when it detonates, and being that he has more health than you he will prevail. Remember, don’t fall for his traps. If he is obviously trying to get you to follow him, run past him to get on his other side. If you don’t do exactly what he wants you to, you can create enough confustion to finish him off before he has a chance to recover.

The “Boink” Report

To get a bat kill on a demoman you only need to know that up close he has a major disadvantage. As I talked about above, donut’ go in the direction he wants you to. Circle around him and keep your approach angles random and you’ll be battin’ a thousand in no time.

From a Distance

From a distance is perhaps the best way for a scout to take out a pyro. At a distance the pyro’s flamethrower is useless, and the scouts scattergun has a definite advantage over the pyro’s shotty. The scout can also pull out his pistol and try to get some more accurate hits on the distanced pryo, if he so chooses. The key here is to STAY AT A DISTANCE. If that pyro can get close enough to whip out his flaming gun of burning (oh and you WILL burn) you are at a serious disadvantage.

Rubbing Noses

The thought of getting up close and personal with a pyro sounds pretty scary as a scout. When up close with his flame thrower, the pyro is almost always sure to win. The key to winning up close with a pyro is to play with the limited range of his primary weapon. Whe you get close, a good pyro will whip out his flame thrower, and as you get away, a good pyro will take out his shotgun and try to gun your down. The best way to take a pyro out is to play with his intuition. Get far enough away he’ll pull out his shotgun, then SHOOT back in close blasting with your scattergun. When you come in he’ll switch back to his flame thrower, so run in, get a good blast or two and run back out to get out of reach of his flame thrower. The key to this working is to play off the lag time between switching guns where he can’t fire either of them. If he does set you on fire, retreat and put it out immediately. The scouts burn like they are made of dry grass, so if you don’t put it out fast you are dead. This technique will probably only work once or twice, though, but hopefully it’ll be good enough to encourage your friendly pyro to try a different class. If he wises up to your tactics and remains a pyro, just keep the distance between you guys and try to take him out with your scattergun/pistol.

“Boink” Report

Getting a bat kill on a pyro is hard work, I won’t lie to you. But it can be done. The trick here is the element of surprise and praying you’ll get some crit hits. Again the rubbing noses “distance bob” technique can work, but instead of using your scattergun you can use your bad. Remember though, if things get hairy always, ALWAYS, keep moving. The pyro flame seems to be the most succeptable to lag, so use that to your advantage. Also double-jumping up to keep the pyro guessing will help you get a home run on him.

My Three Rules of Spy

Rarely Take Secondary Routes

Some people (even valve) will tell you that secondary routes are created for spies to gain entrance to the back of the enemy lines. I found the opposite to be true. To explain my point I will use 2fort. In two fort you have two entrances, the bridge and the sewer. The sewer is the secondary route as it is less traveled because it takes more time. The sewer is a tight area and very linear. Enter the other team’s base via the sewer will send immediate flags to the opponent for two reasons. The first reason is because there aren’t to many people in the sewer. What is the cost of spy checking a single guy? In my experience if the opponent sees a teammate coming towards them in the sewer they will spy check about 95% of the time. Since the sewer is very tight there is really no reason not so spy check because they can easily bump into you. I find taking main routes (carefully) will get you to the back of the enemy lines faster and with less chance of dying.

Stay Right Behind Enemy Lines

Staying JUST behind enemy lines is a sure way to rack up a ton of kills and really piss of the other team. Part of the reason that is so effective is that the other team will almost surely be engaged in combat with your team. They will be occupied and less likely to turn around and spy check. This advantage will often times lead to multiple bunched kills, especially on goldrush. If you can get right behind the action you can take out 4-5 people easily in a few seconds without disguising, cloaking, or running for cover.

I will give you an example of one of my routines for enemy lines killing. As a spy on 2fort I will head out of the spawn and right onto the battlements. I will then look at the entire bridge for action through the small crack in the wall near the floor. This will allow me to gage the action and determine if it is a good time to pass without getting sniped. Sometimes I will be able to see soldiers or a heavy medic combo just entering our front door. In this case I will just drop down and begin my stabbings. If I don’t see anything on the bridge I will cloak and make my run across the bridge. Once cloak has run off I will usually have a target crossing the bridge that I can stab. I will stab and retreat back into my base to gather health if needed and repeat the process. Sometimes you will have only one opportunity and other times you will have a whole string of people to stab. If the conditions are right you can get a lot of kills fast.

Always Choose Pyro as a Disguise

There are many reasons why pyro is the best choice for a disguise as spy, but let me tell you first off that I don’t rely on my disguise to fool the other team. The disguise almost never works as people are more accustom to spy checking now as the game has matured. I would argue that if you are playing the spy effectively you don’t really even need a disguise. Many of my kills are done without a disguise. As you can see from my 2fort routine above the opponent never gets to see my disguise as I am cloaked until i stab them.

To further convince you I will explain why the other classes are bad disguises.

• Scout – The spy movement is not as fast as scout. You can spot a fake scout half way across the map.
• Heavy – The spy movement for heavy is faster than a normal heavy and easily noticeable to your opponent.
• Medic – Medics are always healing people. Since you are a spy you can’t heal anyone. This is a dead give away that you are indeed a spy.
• Engineer – The problem with the engineer is that there are usually only a few of them on a team so if someone yells “Spy is engie” They can spot you easily. A lot of times the team will know the names of the engies and can tell right away if you are a spy. The other give away is that engies typically stay in the back and not near enemy lines. Since spies are best near the front line the engie disguise is a bad idea.
• Soldier – Soldier isn’t really all that bad as a disguise since there are usually many soldiers at any given time. The problem lies in the speed. The spy movement speed as a soldier is a little too slow to catch up to most classes. If you can’t catch up to them you will have a hard time getting a stab in.
• Sniper – Snipers don’t really move. Unless you are sneaking around the battlements there is no need to use this.
• Demo – Demo is the second best disguise. There are always lots a demos on a team and they move fairly quick. The draw back is that they are not quite as fast as a pyro. Since I don’t expect to fool anyone with my disguise I don’t use demo very often.
• Pyro – Pyro is the best because they move fast. They are always quite a few pyros running around on a team. It is also a normal thing to see pyros running around near the front line and crouching near doors.

Kill or Sap?

Contrary to popular belief spies are NOT the most effective class against sentries. Engies will spy check anything that moves even close to their sentries. If you are lucky and fool one they will shoot you down with their powerful shotgun and most likely kill you and repair the sentry, accomplishing nothing. Sentries will almost always be defensive and be placed near cap points and away from the heat of battle. This is the last place a spy should be. The three sticky demo method is by far better at removing sentries than a spy.

To contradict myself for a minute I will tell you spies can be highly effective against level 1/2 sentries and even level 3 with skill. The trick is to wait until the engineer is directly behind is sentry. Go behind him and uncloak. Then backstab the engie and place the sapper on the sentry before it has a chance to turn around on you. This method is really easy to do on level 1 sentries. The higher level sentries will require more timing. On those you will need to wait until the sentry is the furthest away from you and on its way back the opposite direction. This will give you more time before the sentry can turn on you. However even knowing this trick, engines have A.D.D. and wont stay behind the sentry for long. Demos are still better for sentry removal. Stay at the front line.

Is it Spy Friendly?

There comes a point where the game will turn around and conditions are not right for spying. Some maps are down right terrible for spy. On 2fort the best conditions for spy is where the other team is getting aggressive and there is a constant flow of people to stab coming into the front door. If your team is doing well and have them pinned down on their side you will have a harder time getting behind the action and most likely die getting there. Kills will start to slow down and the need for having a spy (especially if there is another one) will decrease and it will be time to think about switching classes for awhile.

Maps that are great for spies

2fort – See my routine above. Stay away from the sewers.
Goldrush 1st leg for red team – On the second stage there is a great cubby behind the area where the cart starts to advance in the open. You can get many kills standing here and just waiting for someone to start pushing the cart.
Badlands – The great thing about badlands is that there are many different paths to the front line. The map is not linear which keeps our opponents guessing. There are also many places to hide.
Well – In well you can cloak behind the lines and then use the water to hide your uncloak.

From a Distance

The trick when rushing up on a soldier as a scout is to keep moving (you’ll end up hearing that quite a bit in this article) and think carefully enough to dodge his rockets. From a distance the scout can run circles around a soldiers rockets. In this scenario you are probably best if you whip out your pistol and try and get solid hits against the soldier. While strafing and dodging you can pepper him with your shotgun, but he’d be foolish not to just retreat and find some health (and with as much damage as you are doing from a distance he’ll probably only need a little health bottle). If you want to execute a kill from a distance, your best option is to rush up on that soldier and get good solid hits with your scattergun.

Rubbing Noses

When you get up close and personal with that soldier, odds are he’ll shoot his rockets at the ground in front of him (because he’s much more able to withstand the splash damage), when he does this you will be popped up in the air flailing wildly. If you dont’ do anything that soldier will juggle you around until your dead. The best way to get out of this is to remember you have a double jump! When he pops you up in the air and is waiting for you to come down, use your double jump to get some quick strafe action and get some distance between you and the soldier, grab some health, and try and spring a trap on him.

“Boink” Report

To get a bat kill on a soldier can be pretty difficult. The only leg-ups you have are that:

• Soldiers usually damage themselves when trying to kill an enemy up close
• As a scout you are significantly faster than the solder

What does this mean? Get up close with the soldier, try and stay above his head (using your double jump). This MAY work. Honestly, the best way to get a bat kill on a soldier is to get the jump on him and hope for a crit. It can be done, but boy is it hard. The scouts advantage is that he is so quick he can take enemies by surprise and keep them guessing or (best case scenario) surprise them into screwing up big time.

What is it?

The scout bomb is a technique that didn’t necessarily appear with the map goldrush, but previous to gold rush you heard similar tactics such as the “scout rush”. A scout rush typically occurs at the map or round start where an entire team switches to scout in order to “rush” the capture points and get a quick win. How does a scout bomb differ from a scout rush you ask? In a map where an objective (capture point, bomb cart) is nearing a capture and you just need the smallest little bit to finish the job, you and several teammates switch to scout and then quickly try to run and jump on to the objective. This is called a bomb because the scouts are “bombing” on to the objective, with little expectancy of living. They jump on just to help get that capture point a little closer to being done, or that cart just a couple inches closer to blowing up the enemy base.

When is it applicable?

The scout bomb is applicable when you “Just need to blow on it”. This means when you have a capture point or bomb cart juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust barely right where it needs to be. A good map for this is obviously Goldrush. Sometimes no matter how hard you and your team work, those last couple feet will NOT happen. When the cart nears the end of a section, the defending team has little travel needed to defend. This can cause for some hard last couple of inches. It is also used to keep the cart from moving back. Often when the defending team is putting up a good fight, the cart can start to move back. Using a scout bomb to just touch the cart for the smallest bit of time stops the backwards countdown and can give your team some time to regroup before attacking again.

Another great map to use the scout bomb on is Hydro. Often times a spy will walk onto a cap point, only to be slaughtered with the smallest bit of capture needed to get it. This is when a scout bomb works great. Grab a scout and go bouncing into that cap point to help get those last little bits required.

Pitfalls

The biggest problem with the scout bomb is that you die. . . . . . alot. Sometimes if an enemy is standing near the bomb cart or capture point your death is in vain! You end up being a dud bomb. The best way to counter this is to make sure that you only have a certain number of people bombing. A great tactic is to pair scout bombs up with soldiers. You have the soldiers pound that objective from a distance then bomb in to get those precious few inches.

Let me know if anyone uses this technique and post in the comments any other tips/comments/suggestions about this tactic!

This guy! —>

Today Valve released the Goldrush Update for Team Fortress 2. Along with some gameplay updates and bugfixes (which will be talked about in a later article), a major addition of this update is the Goldrush map. Goldrush introduces a new gameplay type called Payload, with the premise being that Blu team is pushing a large bomb (the payload) to the objective deep in Red territory. As members of the Blu team stand around the payload it moves forward (with greater speed the more teammates are around it) while simultaniously dispensing ammo and health. When the offensive pushing (Blu) team doesn’t push for 30 seconds, the payload starts slowly moving back down the track from whence it came. This is a key point, because on defense you need to remember that the cart CAN move back, but it moves back at a constant rate no matter how many people you have pushing it.

This map (or perhaps the gameplay type, I’m not sure which yet) are excellent and ridiculously fun to play. Even in the one night that Goldrush has been out I’ve noticed the playing community crafting very different strategies and counter-strategies.

It’s exciting! The primary strategy I’ve encountered thus far is the juggernaut “Heavy Push”. While effective, I think that strategy’s prevalence is due to the large amount of medic-whoring occurring because of the new update. While effective, it’s not a sure thing. An awesome defense I witnessed with a large Pyro Pack sprinkled with engineers and medics. Very effective.

The one tip I can give you this early is do not underestimate the scout on offense. The scout acts as 2 people pushing the payload, and is small enough to use the payload cart as great cover from fire. Also on defense, if you get near the cart you stop the other team’s pushing progress, so when the payload is near the end just just get in there as close as possible and stop that cart from moving (this is where the Pyro defense is VERY smart). I seriously love this map and think it will help increase the levels of teamwork on servers to new highs! Now join up on on the Montana Fragfest server and get pushing that cart!

The first and best way to tell if a friendly isn’t so friendly is by “bumping” into them. By bumping I mean that when you are running around, you will walk through your teammates, but you don’t walk through enemies (or your enemies dispensers, sentries, etc.). So when you are walking, if you walk near a teammate and notice you can’t walk through them, GET KILLIN’! Often I’ll be attacking in a large group of teammates and just notice the slightest bump and more often than not it is a spy.

Another surefire way to tell if someone ISN’T a spy is by looking at the weapon they are wielding. When you are a disguised spy you walk around as your selected class wielding the default weapon. So if you see a medic with their medigun out, don’t worry they aren’t a spy. Also if the teammate is actually firing their weapon they aren’t a spy, because a spy can’t fire weapons when cloaked.

Another built-in measure to find spies is by their name. When a spy selects a class, they inherit a name of a teammate that is using that class, and if they are a class in which your team has no members they will be given a random name from your team. This means if you see someone running around with your name attached they need to be dealt with.

Another way to tell if someone isn’t a spy is through voice communication. If alltalk is off on a server, when that spy uses voice communication they won’t have the little exclamation bubble over their head denoting they are using voice communication. If the server has alltalk off, when the spy uses voice communication then they WILL have the exclamation over their head, but you will notice on the right side that it is a member of the opposite team talking and you should kill them immediately. Often I will use voice communication as a way to let team members know I’m not a spy simply by clicking the voice comm button once or twice so they can see the exclamation over my head and know I am on their team.

There you go, ways to sniff out spies with zero thought required! Get out there, grab a pyro suit, and get flaming those sneaky spies!

• Macs – I know you are proud of your over priced computer (heck, even I own one) and excited to see such a large gathering of people who are somewhat technologically inclined, but your computer is not the same. Your computer is the cheerleader on the sideline while the rest of our computers are busy pummeling each other in the end zone. Please don’t bring a computer that is renown for it’s inability to play video games and then walk around the entire time complaining about not having games to play.
• Bringing Speakers – Seriously? You brought speakers? Let’s perform a Universality Test here: What if EVERYONE brought their speakers? No one would be able to hear anything! It would be a chaotic mess of computer fans, nerd grunts, gunfire, and the occasional sound of a spell being cast. Get a good pair of headphones, you’ll be much happier and you’ll be helping prevent noise pollution.
• Dual Monitors – Dual monitors are a computer user’s best friends. The prevailing attitude is that dual monitors increase productivity, but not at LAN parties. Unless every monitor you have with you is cranking out 3d beautifulness, leave it at home. You don’t need to be productive at a LAN party, in fact one of the goals of a LAN party is to be a UNPRODUCTIVE as possible.
• Wireless Mice – Now I know what you are going to say here, “but Proximity, why would I want to LAN encumbered by wires?”. And the truth is that you are right. I hate wires and I love wireless mice. Wireless mousing CAN be done right at LANs, but in my opinion it’s just TOO RISKY. Again we’ll apply the rule of universality: What if everyone brought a wireless mouse?! There would be so much RF signal interference you’ll be lucky to hit the broad side of the barns in 2fort. Another problem with most wireless mice is that their dock and reciever requires another power plug to get them to work. Now imagine another LANner sets up next to you, goes to plug in his computer and sees your big fat ugly AC adapter taking his spot. Ditch the wireless and get a good wired gaming mouse. You’ll never be the same again.
• MMOs – LEAVE THEM AT HOME. A local area network was not set up so that you could connect to a wide area network to play games.
• Coming totally unprepared – Everyone forgets ONE thing when coming to a LAN, but don’t be the guy walking around bumming power cables, begging for food and energy drinks, and walking around looking for install disks to every game being played. The rest of us didn’t spend time getting ready so we could waste it babying your dumb forgetful ass. If you came with friends ask them first, that is why you have them. If you must bother someone else you don’t really know then by all means make your impact on their night as small as possible.
• Body Odor – Please shower more than once a month. Hot computers + body odor can make for an unbearable environment. This isn’t so much a rule for LAN parties as it is a rule for life. People will like you more, trust me.

Well there you have it. This is by no means and exhaustive list, but hopefully a good enough one to keep you on everyone’s good side at your next LAN party.