ChoicePaintballGuns

Here’s a short list of things you should practice to become better at paintball.  This is the boring type of practice - not necessarily the practice that comes with just playing and playing paintball; we’re talking about training specific movements and skills to help sharpen your shooting skills and physical ability to move.  There are physical skills you can’t become a great player without. Here’s a short list:

– Shooting with your off-hand (left handed shooting for right handed people and visa versa).
– Snap shooting.
– Learning how to crawl.
– Learning to shoot while moving.
– Sliding into bunkers, trees, and other assorted coverings.

Shooting with your off-hand: This is probably the most important skill a player can develop. Why? If you’re playing the left back bunker and shooting down your left tapeline, you will expose a lot of your body if you shoot right-handed.
How to practice:  Training to develop this is simple…. just do it, over and over again.  Go to the backyard, paintball field or wherever, and practice shooting off-handed.  It will seem awkward at first, but you will get better at it quickly.  Even if you never become as good a shooter off-handed as you are shooting naturally, it’s still better to shoot at seventy five percent accuracy from behind your paintball bunker, than one hundred percent accurate with half your body exposed.

Snap shooting: This is when you can pull your gun up and immediately sight in your opponent, while firing off a string of accurate shots. Snap shooting is a great tool to have when you come to a stop while running, or when playing behind big bunkers, especially when you’re playing in close quarters to your opposition.
How to practice: Set up some coffee cans (or equivalent) about 125 feet from you.  Run 25 feet (to the 100 foot point from the targets), come to a dead stop while bringing your paintgun to the shooting position.  Snap shoot the targets.  Do this until you drop or run out of paint.  If you have several targets, try timing yourself from the start, to the time you hit all of the targets.

Crawling: This is a skill you need whether you play arena type of ball or in the woods.  In the arena (airball, Hyperball, etc.) you will need to crawl, especially if you play the snake.  If not in the snake, from low bunker to low bunker, at least from time to time. 
How to practice: Get on your belly and practice.  You’ll want to learn to stay low and move quickly.  Also practice shooting on your belly.  Practice drills where you’re crawling, shooting and then get up quickly and immediately snap shoot.

Shooting on the move:  The game has gotten too fast and the playing field is too small to not have this skill in your toolbox.  There will often be times where you are shooting on the move - with the initial runout, at the game’s end and in one-on-one situations.
How to practice: Practice this like the snap shooting drill, but shoot during the run.  This is one you’ll get better with quickly; you should see an improvement within the first hour of practicing this.  Realistically, you’ll wonder how you ever got by with your average skills.

Sliding into bunkers:  This is actually not that easy; it’s common to slide right out of bounds, lose your feet or get hurt sliding.
How to practice: There’s no trick to sliding, but practice doing it at first without your gun.  Practice sliding feet first and head first.  Add the gun later.  Be careful, these movements can be dangerous, so stay within your physical abilities.  Paintball jerseys, pants with padding or at least baggy clothing will help protect you from getting hurt when sliding, diving or crawling.

If you’re sick of speedball and you’re looking for the ultimate in tactical scenario play - I mean a real tactical scenario event.  The most realistic games have restrictions on paint - this forces you to use tactical stategy and real war tactics.  There’s an event called Operation End War coming up in California that requires everyone on the field to have realistic magazine fed paintball markers.  Rap4 is running it and it looks like it’s going to be an awesome event.  Don’t worry, if you don’t have a magazine fed gun, with your admission fee for the game your rental consists of a brand new T68 Gen6 with 3 additional mags and a MOLLE Vest to hold it in..  it’s the perfect game.  My team and I are so looking forward to this game and just know it’s going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, we’re already bugging RAP4 to do it more than once/year and in more places than on just the west coast.  So if you want to see more well-run big tactical scenario paintball games, go to the event and also help us encourage RAP4 to please the nation and all of us true tactical paintballers by running this event more often.
Matt Kresch Team Trinity

Use a little discipline with your trigger finger and you’ll not only save paintballs but you’ll also keep your opponents guessing!  You cannot win without regular shooting at your opponents and stay focused on avoiding getting shot yourself at the same time - it has to be one or the other (and both at the same time!).  This is why practice is so important.  Remember not to always come out of the same bunker in the same spot; vary your positions to always keep them guessing on where you’re at.  Otherwise your opponent may catch on to your pattern and use it against you.  It takes a lot more than just dodging a few paintballs headed your way to win the game.  If you’re not moving forward, you’re not winning.  You have to be able to move, shoot and be able to hit your target - all at the same time.  Obviously, the more accurate your shooting is, the more quickly you will eliminate your opposition.  Practice your accuracy by trying to hit moving targets as well as still ones.  To get the most out of practicing, it’s essential to have a reliable paintball marker that has a straight shot in a high rate of fire.  Practice shooting targets all you want but the best practice is doing - the more paintball you play, the better you get at playing paintball!  Schedule in a set amount of time each week that you can devote to practicing and improving your skills.  Practice drills can make all the difference if you take your practice time seriously.  Have one of your buddies coach you to help point out your strengths and build up your weaknesses.

The Frontman, also known as the pointman, is the player in the middle of all of the action; you’d better have a strong stomach and plenty of balls to take on this spot on your team.  The Frontman is probably one of the most exciting positions on the paintball field but they’re also usually the first to be eliminated.  The Frontman makes all the daring moves and stays close to the enemies the whole game; this makes him a very key player in the game.   Sometimes, the Frontman is also the captain of the paintball team.  He plays at the front of the field and is the player responsible for getting the other team’s flag or accomplishing the team’s mission.  The frontman is closer than any of his teammates to the enemies.  For this reason he is backed up by several of the other positions on the field: the lockman, the sniper, and the insert.  The frontman carries the lightest load because he shoots the least; his job is to maneuvre.  He needs to be the fastest player with the quickest reflexes; sprinting, jumping, rolling and crouching at the blink of an eye are a must for this player.  Most of his time on the field will be spent going from one bunker to the next until he competes the mission.  The frontman must also know how to make himself small, minimizing the target for the enemy as he runs from bunker to bunker.  The Frontman’s paintball gun should be light, easy to carry, aim and shoot quickly and accurately.  It does not have to hold many paintballs because this position spends more time running and hiding than shooting.  However, every good Frontman will still carry enough ammo in case he gets pinned down with enemy fire!

The back player, also referred to as the ‘backman’, is usually a more experienced player.  It is not uncommon for him to have to shoot with both hands, or even switch up trigger fingers when one finger gets too tired.  He starts shooting early in the game and doesn’t move around outside of his starting area much during the game.  The backman has a lot of responsibilities.  He pretty much controls the movements of the players on his team because he has the view with the most advantage.  He not only has to protect the flag or keep the opposing team from accomplishing their missions, but he must also defend his own teammates further up on the field, keep them informed on the opposition’s movements and progression, and tell the rover when he needs to take over for the pointman.  The backman needs a paintball marker and gun barrel that will shoot fast and hard.  It’s also smart for him to carry plenty of ammo; he will be shooting a lot throughout the whole game.  For this reason, he will need to carry the most paintballs, a larger air supply, and shoot a gun with a long barrel to improve his reach.  He must also be able to shoot and be accurate at high rates of speed and while he’s moving around the field.

If you want to keep your opponents guessing in your next game, try creating diversions.  You don’t ever want your opponent to know what’s coming and you certainly don’t want them to be able to guess what moves you’re getting ready to make.  If you’re planning on making an attack on the right side, you may want to build up more players on the left side to make your opponent focus more on the left.  Then, as your opposition prepares for more defense on the left, you can launch an attack from the right.  Another effective diversion is recruiting floaters for your team.  This position must be designated ahead of time/before the game.  A floater is a player who has view of the whole field.  This is helpful because they can see all eliminations made during the game, make sure backup is where ever it’s needed, and can call for defense at the appropriate times.  If you have a sniper on your team, sometimes they make good floaters and can use this position to pick off key players.  They may also be able to see the field better with their paintball sniper scope.

The Big Game is the larger scale scenario paintball game.  The larger paintball games have become more and more popular.  They usually have at least ten players on each team and the game may last as long as twenty-four hours or even several days.  Most of the time, these games simulate real popular events such as historical conflicts or wars; therefore, use similar paintball gear as what was used in those actual events.  It is common for the game to be preceded by a big party the night before. 

Obstacles on the course may include both natural obstacles such as rocks as well as some man made ones such as tanks, land mines, fortresses, bunkers, and even occasionally underground bunkers.  At the very end of the game everyone comes out of hiding and shoots each other.  The objectives of these games may vary from total elimination, capture the flag or different missions.  The storylines and themes are usually kept fairly simple to prevent the game from getting too confusing.  One thing’s for sure, there is always a lot of action!  Usually there will be a general over each team from the start to manage his team and see to it that the objective of the game gets accomplished.

Flanking is one of hundreds of paintball tactics in which a player distracts the opposing team with an attack while another player sneaks around the side or back of the other team.  It is most successfully used on players who have tunnel vision or are so wrapped up in fighting off the players in front of them that they don’t notice the attackers making their way around them to defend an attack from the side or back.  The attacking player who is making his way around to the side or back of the enemy relies heavily on his teammates.  It is up to the teammates to keep the opposing team distracted.  Without full support from his team, the likelihood of being successful with this move is low.  When flanking, make sure to stay as invisible to the other team as possible; remain unseen with crawling and staying hidden behind bunkers, keeping shooting to a minimum to avoid being detected.  Then when you’re in the right spot, surprise the enemy with a barrage of well-placed shots, preferably from an automatic paintball gun.  Make sure your flanking move is pre-planned in your team strategy so your other teammates know when you’re making the move and will keep fire heavy while you’re moving.  Sometimes it’s smart to have your sniper do the flanking so he can sneak precision shots at key players in more vulnerable positions.

Attack and defend games are quite popular in paintball.  There are many different variations of this game.  In one version, one team may be confined to an area they’re to defend, the rest of the team may have a flag or treasure to capture for the opposing team and bring back to home base.  Either way, the basic point of the game is to defend your territory while breaking past the other team’s defense.  One popular game is capture the flag.  In this play, the opposing team must lower the defenders flag and raise its own.  The opposing team has to raise their team’s flag to the top of the flag pole.  If they are eliminated while raising their team’s flag, the flag stays where it is and the station remains uncaptured until the flag is fully raised.  At this point, the defending team cannot recapture their station.  Another flag themed game is ‘Attack The Fort’.  In this game, a fort is built up on a bunker.  Each team guards their own fort while trying to break past the opposing team’s defense and get their flag to the tower of the opposing team’s fort. 

Another fun variation (that doesn’t include a flag) is the Bunny Game.  In this game, the team on defense has a fake bunny to protect.  The defending team cannot leave the defending area or conceal the bunny from plain view.  The attacking team starts off far enough from the defense that they are not in shooting range.  They are free to move around where ever they want as long as they remain in the boundaries.  The purpose of the game is the assassinate the bunny.  To win, the attacking team must shoot the bunny in the lens of its goggles.

A paintball attack is when a team makes their move towards the enemy side of the field, make a surge to the opposing team’s flag, or makes a move towards the defending team’s players.  There are hundreds of different paintball games and your method of attack may be different for each, depending on the objective of the game or other variables, like whether or not there are bunkers to hide behind.  For example, in Capture The Flag, a player’s attack strategy may involve taking a path where the enemy isn’t.  In games of total elimination, the objective is for one player (or one team) to be the only one standing at the end of the game.  In the game Alamo, an attacking team must break through an enemy line of defense within a certain period of time.  In the game street fighter, players fight out in the open, with no bunkers, forts, or holes to hide in.  No matter what the game is, enforce your attack through a combination of strategy, player’s preparation, and luck and you will most likely emerge victorious.

To mount a proper attack, players must develop a keen field of vision to see the field around them, and know where the enemies are.  A player’s experience is the best means of developing the art of field of vision.  Players with this skill are successful at using their peripheral vision to see not only what is in front of them, but also what is to the left and right of them.  During an attack, make sure you’re running and shooting at the same time.  Players that only run across the field without taking aggressive maneuvers towards the enemy are putting themselves in a vulnerable position; you’re likely to get shot.  If the opposing players have the opportunity to take multiple shots at the enemy without seeing return fire headed that way, then they have a distinct advantage.  When a player executes running and shooting correctly, they shoot at the enemy while on the run, enabling their chances of staying in the game longer.