The Tactical Games: Local Skirmishes To The Phoenix Regionals

After 37 years of walking the earth, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that some of the most important lessons I’ve gotten have been gained from discomfort in one way or another, like a child learning the hard way about the cigarette lighter in a car. In much the same way, when I signed up for my first Tactical Games Skirmish, I had essentially started a short journey that would end with a greater appreciation for what it took to not get burned by myself in the process. 

My initial impression of the Tactical Games was probably not unique; I had always described it (albeit from a distance) as a group of office workers with severance packages who needed to find personality in CrossFit, and then at some point one of the other Tacoma drivers at the local overlanding parking lot meetup mentioned firearms and someone had the bright idea to put it all together. 

But as Tactical Games grew and evolved, they started to push the rifle target distances and use shooting barricades that resembled what you’d find in PRS, and as a result, I had a few Tactical Games competitors coming to classes to learn the nuance of positional long range shooting. This got me interested enough that when single-day “gateway drug” Tactical Games matches known as Skirmishes came to Southern California, I decided to sign up and see what all the fuss had been about. 

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Having survived largely off of hamburgers and white Monsters up to that point in life, I knew my physical conditioning was something that needed major attention, so I got into the gym for what probably looked like light workouts to some, but they sure felt like heavy workouts to me. 

I focused mainly on cardio and maintaining, not just through physical load but to fight the desire to just pack it up and go home. Nightly workouts slowly started to feel a little easier, and when they did, I would add on some weight and/or time and keep pushing. Workouts are only half of the equation, and my diet got cleaned up as much as I could bear as well. 

Who knew that eating only rabbit food and drinking water could properly sustain human life? 

Apparently it can, and along with cutting as much obvious sugar as I could, the scale started reporting numbers in favor. Range training continued as well, with my normal classes/competitions forming a solid base for the shooting portions of what I expected to see at the Skirmish. 

THE FIRST ONE ALWAYS HURTS

The date for my first Skirmish came, and it was obvious up front that the event was going to be professionally run, organized, and well equipped by Cameron and his team. Each competitor had a quick gear inspection during check-in to ensure compliance with TTG rules. Essentially amounting to making sure none of the rifles had muzzle brakes and weighing everyone’s plate carriers, which had to be no less than 15lbs for men and 13lbs for women. 

A Skirmish is essentially four stages for the day, with two of them being a physical/shooting mix, one pure shooting stage, and one pure physical stage. Physical challenges included shuttle runs, weighted bag carries, and a stationary bike. 

Shooting was largely static rifle and pistol, save for a single very short 2-gun style stage with the farthest targets overall placed at 200yds. At the end of the day, after the shame of riding a stationary bicycle at the range had worn off, nobody was more surprised than me to learn that I had taken 4th place overall and 1st in the Men’s Intermediate division. I went home tired, and determined that I had seen enough and wouldn’t ever be going to any more Tactical Games events. I was done.

ANYTHING CAN BE A SUBMARINE ONCE

So naturally, at my second Skirmish experience just a couple months later, I had a much better idea of what I was in for. However, some of the physical training had worn off in my laziness since the prior one. And the plan became one of surviving the physical challenges in good enough shape to get me back to my guns, and so long as I could do that, then I could let my shooting skills carry me through the rest. Just get back to the guns and don’t get smoked. 

This time around, the stationary bikes had been replaced by a SkiErg machine where you pull on overhead ropes attached to a resistance mechanism similar to a motion you’d see in cross-country skiing but without the benefit of actually traveling anywhere; the maximum rifle target distance had been reduced to 175 yards, and the 2-gun stage had been expanded. 

The dust settled, targets were scored, and nobody was more surprised than myself to learn that I had not only taken 1st in Men’s Intermediate division again, but also took 1st overall this time around. I went home tired, and determined that I had seen enough and wouldn’t ever be going to any more Tactical Games events. I was done. 

REGIONALS

For 2026, the final 2-day Tactical Games Regional event was held at CowTown range outside the north end of Phoenix, and on my 7-hour drive out there there was ample opportunity to formulate an interesting observation I had been making about Tactical Games but couldn’t quite put into words until I realized I had become part of it. In my opinion, The Tactical Games is an event; however, it is not, in itself, a discipline. 

It’s made up of many different disciplines ranging from being physically fit, USPSA, mobility and agility, multigun, the ability to think fast and on the fly, and PRS, to name a few. In order to be successful, you need to participate in each of those disciplines individually and often. 

As a shooter, first I realized that I came at this whole experience from a different perspective than most of the competitors that I observed, who seemed to come from the fitness side of the house but haven’t spent nearly as much time on the range. More than a few people I had spoken to had never shot any other form of competition outside of TTG, which felt odd to me. 

However, I can feel pretty confident in pointing this out, because in the time between the last Skirmish and this Regional event, I had done exactly the same thing I had been mentally accusing others of, and I had absolutely let the physical conditioning slide back to a point where it was essentially nonexistent. I had become the problem I was trying to define the whole time. But after 7 hours of driving, I was committed. 

Regional events are held by Tactical Games formally, and are much larger with 200 competitors, vendor booths and sponsors, and eight stages spread over two days. Stages felt mostly similar to what I had experienced at the Skirmishes, but they required more reps to finish with the same time caps. 

Weighted bag movements were no longer across open ground; now they were wrapped up in sled drags and over/under large metal structures. Maximum rifle target distance had been expanded to 380 yards; the ratio of pure shooting to physical stages was upset, with only two stages consisting purely of shooting. But the plan remained: just get back to my guns and don’t get smoked. 

GEAR

We all love talking guns and gear, and a few new additions made it out to Phoenix to help make up where I’d inevitably leave off. Some strategic emails scored a new Wilson Combat 14.7” barrel, which thanks to it’s relatively heavy profile would keep any potential thermal shift at a minimum while being much more handy than the 18” upper I had been using to that point. 

Around that awesome barrel a new upper assembly was built utilizing a bolt carrier and captured recoil spring assembly from Unrivaled Technologies to help with recoil as much as possible. 

Thanks to the generous folks at Vortex, a Gen 3 Razor 4-24 was installed with a Defender ST red dot in the 45-degree position on a Bobro Engineering mount, giving me both a little more optic for those longer shots while retaining the unmagnified red dot abilities. Wrapping up the rifle changes was a pile of 77gn match ammo from Trace ensuring that anytime I needed rounds pinpointed on target that the rifle had the ammo it needed to make that a reality. 

As far as a pistol, I had been using an Atlas Nemesis GT5 that I saw no reason to attempt to upgrade. For supporting accessories I used by trusty One Shot Industries two-piece duty belt, an old Blue Force Gear sling, and a plate carrier made by T3 filled with requisite weights made by Jacked Rabbit instead of stiff armor that restricts movement and I’ve been told has a tendency to jab people in the chin during the kind of movements we’d be expecting.

PHOENIX

Day one of the Phoenix Tactical Games was all about pacing for me; I didn’t want to push 120% and find myself completely out of gas for day two, so I kept to what I felt were manageable paces and tried to let the shooting carry me. Coming up on ¾ of the way through the day, the weather reminded us of what we had forgotten: that it hated us and wanted us to go away.

50mph winds sandblasted anyone unlucky enough to get caught out in the open, and then heavy rain in the same wind took what canopies that hadn’t folded and forced large groups to attempt to take shelter under them. Luckily for all of us, this lasted about an hour and then disappeared as quickly as it came. Just totally normal Arizona things, I guess.

The final stages for the day were able to resume, and very lucky for me, I had completed any stages that required work off the ground, so I was able to avoid the mud pit. Others were not so lucky.

Day two was much milder in terms of weather, but it started with the most physically demanding stage thus far. In my division, a 70lb sandbag was placed into a metal sled and pulled about 40 yards to a long metal structure that the bag needed to be lifted over/under eventually to the other side before a rifle/pistol firing sequence could begin. 

Any missed shots resulted in penalty work consisting of lifting that same bag up and over a roughly 5’ tall bar, once for every miss. Then the bag was taken back through the whole obstacle course, back onto the sled, and the sled pushed back through the 40 yards to where another rifle and pistol magazine were waiting. Grab those mags, turn around, and repeat the process a total of 3x with a time cap of 15 minutes. Somehow, someway, this was one of my better stages yet and set the stage for some confidence through the day.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

By the end of the event, it was abundantly clear that the decision to avoid any physical conditioning with excuses and misplaced blame had affected my scores heavily, with two stages from day one heavily penalized due to hitting the time cap before finishing. 

As I previously mentioned, my takeaway from Tactical Games is that all the disciplines that it’s made up of need to be practiced independently and often, and while others fail to do that with shooting, I had failed to do so with the exercise part of that equation. With all of that considered, I finished 21/46 in my division, so still in the upper half but obviously not where I wanted to be. 

One standout fact about TTG is that I have never been around a more outwardly supportive group of shooters ever. Strangers literally yelling you on in support to push harder, handshakes and hugs all around, and minimal judgment from anyone. The real goal is to finish strong individually, and the bar for that can be different for every person, and the people around you will do anything in their power to help you achieve whatever your goals are. 

I had a 7-hour drive home on Monday to reflect on it all to this point: the highs and lows, where I could do better and put in more effort, the friends I had made as a result of this event, and the opportunity to experience something new and different, which was a theme for me this year. I decided that I had seen enough and wouldn’t ever be going to any more Tactical Games events. I was done. 

…Right?

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