Tactical Thursday: How to Defend your Prison (Part 1)

I like to spout my mouth a lot about bunkering down in the wintertime as Zack is frozen in his tracks, but the cold truth is that there is going to be an awkward time in spring when the weather bounces up and down all over the place. Zack may unthaw for a day and bum through your campsite, only to be frozen later that week. A constant policing of your perimeter is key if you are going to keep your shit secure.

So today I am going to introduce Tactical Thursdays to you - it's like Throwback Thursdays on our Instagram, but with less smiling children and more bloodshed.

Now Rick Grimes and company did a great job of keeping eyes out while waiting for the Governor to come charging towards their prison (well, mostly). But of course, they had a bloody watch tower with a 360 degree view. My bet is not too many of us will have that luxury. Also, they were expecting a frontal attack the entire time, so all of their defensive assets could be laid out in a straight line (how convenient and non-manpower intensive).

But for the rest of us shmucks stuck on the x and y axis, with the possibility of danger from every probable direction - we're going to have to lock our perimeter down.

The first thing we want to do is secure the cardinal points (12, 4, and 8 o'clock), which is basically putting your people at observation posts in a rough triangle shape.

This is a minimum - the more people you can afford, the more you can place out - to make a pentagon shape perhaps. This will largely depend on the zombie threat level you are currently at. Remember - more points out is more secure, but affords less rest to the group.

When placing these OPs, you want a single commander to walk to each point, place a dude down, and give him his arcs of fire. This will let him know how far to his left and right he has to worry about observing/shooting at. This gives that person a very specific range that they are responsible for securing. Just watch the bees in the jar, buds.

Now the most important part is to make sure that everyone's individual arcs of fire in your perimeter overlap with each other. This is called interlocking arcs of fire. This will ensure redundancy in the system, just in case some soup-sandwich numpty falls asleep, or misses his shot when the zombies start rolling in.

Once all the OPs are set, and the arcs of fire have been christened, and everything interlocks like a pyramid of lego - you just have to wait. And wait. And wait. Day and night, in the sleet and snow, pumping your frozen fingers like a teen in the limo back from grad night. Get some hot brew down your gullet when you can - because when Zachary comes belting down that hill, you may be in for the fight of your life.

Next Tactical Thursday: How to increase your kill-to-death-ratio in your glorious, potentially last, stand.